False Bay West Coast #3: Milestone 26
This park ‘n’ grab cache is the 3rd of a 7-cache FBWC series which will take you to some possibly less well-known parts of this wonderfully wild but still easily accessible coastline – and fill a few gaps between existing caches!
The small, screw-capped, camo-taped sample tube, is hidden at an old concealed stone distance marker, which is apparently not (well) known and which was stumbled upon by accident (in searching for a good cache hide location!) as it had become well-concealed by a thick thorny bush.
The initial milestones were placed in 1814-1815 when the now M4, which then ran from the City to Simon’s Town, was declared a main road during the 1814-1826 governorship of Lord Charles Somerset . This need arose from the 1814 British decision to make Simon’s Bay their naval station which in turn necessitated the upgrading of Main Road from Wynberg through to Simon’s Town.
The roadworks were done concurrently along 3 sections: Wynberg – Diep River, Diep River – Muizenberg, and Muizenberg – Simon’s Town, with the last being the most important because of the difficult terrain and poor quality of the road. Work was started in June 1814 and completed around August 1816.
With the roadworks came the milestones, installation of which along main roads had become mandatory in the home country, Britain, 50 years earlier and the practice was adopted here. Their purpose was both to mark the edge of the road and also enable accurate estimation of distances, travel times and fares for services running between Cape Town and Simon’s Town.
They were probably designed by the famous engineer-surveyor Louis Michel Thibault and were most likely
cut from slate quarried on Robben Island. British convicts awaiting transportation to Australia worked there and may have been responsible for cutting and inscribing the stones.
The road onwards to Smitswinkel was only completed a century later in 1915, so the milestones along this stretch such as this one, must have been placed sometime later.
The distances were measured from the Old Town House which was built in Greenmarket Square, Cape Town in 1755 under Governor Rijk Tulbagh, and was one of Cape Town’s first official buildings.
This early Rococo-style building has been a police station, magistrate’s court, a Burgher Watch House, the Burgher Senate and until 1905, Cape Town’s City Hall and is vitally important to the city in both a historical and cultural context.
It was converted into a museum of fine art - the first of its kind in the city. In 1914 Sir Max Michaelis donated his collection of 100 17th century Dutch and Flemish masterpieces to the museum whose collection includes masters like Frans Hals, Jacob Ruisdal, Anthony van Dyck and many others.
Apart from its permanent collection on display, the museum also holds temporary exhibitions and a popular venue for lectures on culture, chamber-music concerts, corporate meetings and receptions. The beautiful courtyard is often used for film shoots, wedding photographs and outdoor receptions.
Only 12 milestones still exist (including 2 replicas) with some disappearing during road improvements and others vandalised (see table below).
| Milestone |
Place |
Location |
Photo |
| V |
Rondebosch |
S 33 57.960
E 18 28.020
|
 |
| VII |
Kenilworth |
S 33 59.640
E 18 28.140 |
 |
| IX |
Plumstead |
S 34 01.344
E 18 28.140 |
 |
| XII |
Tokai |
S 34 03.924
E 18 28.041
|
 |
| XIII |
Kirstenhof |
S 34 04.776
E 18 27.363
|
 |
| XIV |
Lakeside |
S 34 05.521
E 18 27.793
|
 |
XV
(replica) |
Muizenberg |
S 34 06.313
E 18 28.077
|
 |
| XVI |
St James |
S 34 07.046
E 18 27.625
|
 |
| XVII |
Kalk Bay
(replica) |
S 34 07.664
E 18 26.891
|
 |
| XIX |
Sunny Cove
(Fish Hoek) |
S 34 08.608
E 18 26.106
|
 |
| 25 |
Murdoch Valley
(Simon's Town) |
S 34 12.501
E 18 27.614
|
 |
| 26 |
Miller's Point
(1.2km N of) |
S 34 13.298
E 18 27.922
|
 |
| 28 |
Blue Gums |
S 34 14.832
E 18 28.480 |
 |
The replica slate Milestone XVII in Kalk Bay was unveiled on 10-11-2015, the bicentennial year of the placing of the original. This was celebrated as ‘the recovery of an element of Cape Town’s lost transportation heritage: milestones’ and fulfilled a long-identified objective of the local historical association.
The original milestone appears clearly in an 1880 photo and may have survived up to the 1920s when major road improvements were undertaken. It may have been damaged or buried then, or perhaps earlier. It was hoped it might be found during recent roadworks but despite searching diligently the contractors could not find it. But at least the photo provided a precise location for the stone and its replacement.
Some of the milestones were featured in ElredL’s well received 9-cache ‘Miles To The Old Townhouse’ series and Malo Mystery’s archived GC23NGY Milestone Mission multi-cache based on identifying 6 milestones (with their numbers removed) from photos.
