Page 195 - KBHA BULLETIN 6

the recommendation of the Amenities Committee “that the old Aquarium premises at St.

James be demolished forthwith and in due course the area be laid with lawns and sun

shelters.” Seven tenderers called for the demolition documents, but only one, that of Beck
and Smit of 1, Dunkley Street, Cape Town was received. Their tender was £365-0-0 and

after a deposit of £10-0-0 and the submission of two sureties, their price was accepted. The
job was signed off as complete by the Council on the 25 February 1955. Some of the

dressed stone was used to close off the Main Road boundary wall of Villa Capri.

The Corner Shops

A most interesting building is that at the corner of Main and St. James Road. It was

constructed by Mr. Benjamin Hugh Hudson who bought the property in 1903 from the

deceased estate of Abraham Auret who had lived on the opposite corner of the road in
"Auret’s Cottage". The building consisted of three shops the centre one of which was used

from 1913 to June 1915 as a Periodical Court. It sat once a week on Wednesdays and had
moved from Lever Road, Kalk Bay when the premises hired from Mrs. R. Fish proved

inadequate. The decision to move the court to St. James, which was more central to persons
living in Muizenberg, raised strong objections from the Kalk Bay residents. A petition led

by Canon Brooke was presented to the Attorney General, but to no avail.

The corner shop remained operative in the 1920s as a tearoom called "The Tea Cosy" until

the shops and the house (known as "Match Box") were sold to George Stavropoulos in
1930. Thereafter John Rudolphe ran the premises as a grocery and vegetable store until

1977. He and his family lived in "The Matchbox".

Despite a petition led by Harry Orpen in 1928, and signed by over 50 residents of St.

James, that no shops, other than "The Tea Cosy", be allowed to operate along the Main
Road from Stegman’s Rus (The Posthuys) in Muizenberg to Millwood Flats in Kalk Bay,

the shop which butted up against Bellemer Flats on the Muizenberg side operated as a

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