Page 248 - Bulletin 8 2004

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The judgement in December 1922 ruled in favour of the de Villiers Estate, so the
ratepayers took the case to the Appelate Division in Bloemfontein. The 50-page

judgement in April 1923 upheld the verdict of the lower Court namely, that it was not the
beacons that delimited the eastern edge of the Farm but the limit of the high tides, and

this limit had altered with the passage of time. It was stated that: “When land adjoining

the sea ceases to be washed by the tides, it loses the character of the shore.” This meant
that the de Villiers Estate was within its legal rights in laying out plots on the old

foreshore and that the ratepayers and the Surveyor-General had lost the case.

However, the case did not end there because the Government became concerned by the
wider implications of the judgement for other parts of the coastline. The Surveyor-

General advised the Minister of Lands to rectify the State’s title to the Fish Hoek

foreshore. This was finally achieved in March 1928 after protracted negotiations. The
Village Management Board was enabled to buy the seven morgen of land from the Estate

by taking out a loan of £3,000, after the Estate had first ceded the land to the

Government which had then ceded it to the VMB. The loan took 30 years to pay off –
but the ratepayers saved the beach for Fish Hoek. If the residents had not succeeded in

this there might today have been a double row of houses all the way along the beach.

In the late 1924 a tea-room was built on stilts and children used to play underneath
looking for coins dropped through gaps in the floorboards. The structure survived till the

early 1950s when the first part of the present restaurant was built.

The sunny wind-sheltered rocks along from the de Villiers Homestead had always been

popular for sun-bathing and swimming, and the easiest way of getting to them was by
walking along the rail line. (Fig 5.10). But as this was not a safe route the VMB decided

in 1931 to have plans drawn up for a cement pathway leading from the beach to
Sunnycove. It was built in two phases and completed in January 1933. It was named