Page 22 - Bulletin 21

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The Kimberly Hotel

In 1877 the Diamond Rush brought many thousands of prospectors and traders to Cape

Town. Thomas Wood owned a small single-storey building at the corner of Buitenkant and
Roeland Street which was described in the Deed of Sale as a house when hotelier, Thomas

Mulvihal, took transfer in 1873. Mulvihal, aware of the start of the Diamond Rush, extended
the house into a larger building and built a fenced area behind it where ox-wagons, carriages

and horse-carts were stored. He also constructed stables for the horses, and a fodder-store for

the draught-oxen, which were kept in pens in a nearby open field. This establishment became
the departure-point for the Kimberley mines and was named the Kimberley Hotel.

It became a hive of activity with the bar forever crowded with rough and ready fortune-
seekers of various cultures, shapes and sizes. Despite the railway connection from Cape

Town to Kimberley in 1885, which facilitated the moving of men and machinery, the hotel
never lost its popularity. In 1901 Mulvihal, flush with the continuous success of his hotel,

requested architect Fred Cherry to redesign it with the addition of a first and second floor.

Cherry was well-versed with art nouveau architecture and his design in 1894 of the

Whittington Hotel, corner of Darling and Zieke Streets, was popular. (Fig. 1.15.) His redesign
of the Kimberley Hotel was a masterpiece in art nouveau architecture and included the

magnificent stairway, the bar counter and the bar floor tiles, all of which had been made to
the highest quality of Italian craftsmanship. It received praise in the press. (Fig. 1.16.)

This hotel now houses backpackers. It is, with the Mount Nelson Hotel, the only hotel, of
over 100 hotels listed in the 1906 Juta’s Street Directory, which still retains the name, façade

and function to this day. (Fig. 1.17.)

The Royal Hotel

The Royal (as it was known), at the corner of Corporation and Longmarket Streets, was

originally named the Hotel d’ Europe in the 1860s, but was renamed the Royal Hotel in 1867,
after the visit to Cape Town of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, the son of Queen Victoria.

In 1893 that great exponent of art nouveau architecture, George Ransome, redesigned the
hotel, and: The “Royal” is one of the most sumptuous hotels in South Africa and the boldness