Friday, March 9, 2012

Imagining the past

As you leave Fish Hoek Beach you cross the railway line, and on your left is the South African Navy's "WO's, CPO's and PO's Mess". This is the site of Fish Hoek's original farm homestead that was built, it is thought, in the nineteenth century by one of the owners of the "Vischhoek loan place"or farm, a Thomas Palmer, who bought it in 1822 and then went insolvent, after which the farm was subdivided into three. Several subdivisions later it was bought by the formidable Hester de Villiers, who was the owner when this photo was taken in the early twentieth century. The scar made by the stone quarry (opened in 1896) in the hill above can be seen even to this day. Today, a hundred years later. The blue arrow marks the spot of the naval mess, hidden behind the ugly beach buildings.

6 comments:

  1. I love then and now posts and am sorry to say that I haven't done any in years. Perhaps I should get my hands on a couple of old pics and get posting.

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  2. Is that where the Royal Navy were stationed also?
    Jane x

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  3. Not quite where the Royal Navy was - that was in Simonstown slightly further south.You needed a passport to go into Simonstown until about 1956 or so (cant quite remember) when it was given to the SA Navy. Caroline

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