Page 196 - KBHA BULLETIN 6

shoemaker (early 1930s), a ballet school, and finally as a chemist in the 1950s. It was

subsequently joined up with the middle shop as an enlarged tearoom. Today the whole

complex is one large restaurant.

The Bellemer Flats were built in 1935 under great protest from the residents of Rodwell
Estate, and a petition organized by T. M. Findlay of "Hursley", Rodwell Road objected

most strongly to Bellemer Flats being constructed. Council, however, found that it was
within Municipal regulations, but in 1940 all further flat construction in St. James was

prohibited in its entirety.

Auret's Cottage

On the opposite side of St. James Road stood "Auret’s Cottage", home for some 50 years to
the well-known Abraham Auret, a leading fisherman/whalerman in the False Bay area and

part founder of the Dutch Reformed Church in Kalk Bay. (Figs. 4.7 & 4.8). He bought this
St. James property as a young man with probable help from his father Jeremias Auret circa

1840 from the insolvent estate of C. G. Langerman. By the mid-1850s he had built his
home in which he was to live until his death on 28 January 1902.

Abraham Auret was instrumental in leading a petititon to the Cape Government in March
1866 to have the name Kalk Bay changed to Ashton Bay in honour of Lt. Col. Henry

Ashton, who for many years had been “the benefactor, sympathizer, advisor and medicine
supplier to the fishermen of Kalk Bay”. 80 local Fishermen signed the petition which,

according to the population census, must have included nearly every fisherman in Kalk
Bay. This indicated the great esteem in which Lt. Col. Ashton was held. The petition was

undertaken out of a sense of deep respect after the fishermen had learnt, much to their

distress, that Ashton was returning to England permanently. He in fact delayed his
departure until 1871. The petition, needless to say, was unsuccessful.

193