Page 42 - KBHA BULLETIN 6

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minor port of the Union on 21 June 1917. Finally, the prominent cold storage building and

fish curing shed still remained.

By this time, however, ownership of the Point had changed again. In 1923 it was bought from
I & J by the African Lands and Hotels Ltd. – the property arm of the Union Castle Co. who

were intending to develop a hotel on the coast as a complement to the Mount Nelson in the
city bowl. This plan fell away when they purchased the Majestic Hotel instead, around 1928.

As a consequence the Point was advertised for sale in 1932 as Point Township. (Fig. 2.9).

The township consisted of 12 perimeter plots fed by a cul-de-sac road running across the
centre of the Point. The sale did not go through as the reserve price of £8 000 was not

achieved. At this time the City Council wanted the land as a public recreation ground for

coloured people and so both parties came to an agreement in which the ALH sold the land for
£4 500. In this way the Point passed to the Council in 1935 and has remained municipal land

ever since.

In 1929 "By-the-Sea" was rebuilt as a double-storey Victorian style residence. "Patmos" had
been demolished earlier but the nearby stable had been modernised through the addition of

windows and a double-pitch corrugated iron roof. On a plan dated 13 / 1 / 1938 (Fig. 2.10)

only the outlines of walls are shown where once had stood the row of brick cottages next to
the railway line, and the cold storage shed. It is presumed that the Municipality demolished

these sometime during the mid-1930s.

Era 5: Public Recreation Area 1935 - present

The confined spaces inside the harbour property contrasted starkly with the vacant municipal

land on the Point and eventually this area was eyed by the Fisheries Development
Corporation, now managers of the Union's smaller harbours. In 1946 they made application

for a portion of Point land on which to build "a modern cold storage and ice-making plant,
and an up-to-date fish stall, and rest rooms for the fishermen".

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