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KALK BAY’S STREET NAMES TELL THEIR STORIES

Steve Herbert

Introduction

There are quite a few streets in our small village and on looking at them more closely I have been

able to find out the story behind many of their names. Some might say – why bother? But the street
names of an historic place like Kalk Bay carry part of its history.

In most cases I haven’t been able to find any official record of how or when the decision was made

but research points to the reason a street has a particular name. It seems to have been about 1915
when things were made official and this may be connected to the KB-MM’s absorption into the

greater Cape Town Municipality in 1913.

Until that time there was no real need for an ‘address’ as we know it now. Everyone knew everyone
and right into the 1970s letters would arrive quite safely simply addressed to someone at ‘Kalk

Bay’.

We start on the south of Kalk Bay and work across to the north. Where my best efforts to find the
origin of the name came to nothing I have included the name with a note to that effect.

Quarry Road to Clairvaux Road

Quarry Road

It doesn’t take much research to find out how this street got its name! The 1915 Attridge survey
map clearly shows the quarry on the mountain. (Fig. 3.1). Mike Walker mentions that it was

operated by the well-known mason and builder William Delbridge and that the quarry was closed

in 1912 by the Kalk Bay - Muizenberg Municipality (KB-MM). The trolley tracks marked on the