|
 Whatever arrangement Horak had had with Somerset, his affairs did
not prosper after his Excellency’s departure. Horak had problems with his
new neighbour. In 1832 Oliphant complained that Horak’s horses and
cows wandered into the grounds of his home and slept in his corn, and
threatened to take legal steps if they were not removed immediately - an
easy threat for an Attorney-General to make. A few months later Horak’s
land was put up for sale but he held on to it until he went insolvent and
had to sell in 1837.
It has been an hotel or restaurant ever since. The Round House is a
National Monument today, as is the home of Horak’s granddaughter, Mrs
Koopmans De Wet, a museum in Strand Street.
History is not fair in the selection of names. The contribution of the
actual pioneer - sometimes anonymous or ignored - is not necessarily
recognized when places have names bestowed on them - sometimes
eponymous or undeserved. Camps Bay is permanently associated with the
name of a transient resident, as is the Round House. Although Von
Kamptz only owned the area for 8 years, part of which time he was
overseas, the bay has retained his name. Although the Round House
belonged to Horak from 1813 to 1837, both locals and tourist brochures
know it as Lord Charles Somerset’s hunting lodge. Few have heard of
Horak or of Wernich. There is a romance about extravagant aristocrats and
opportunistic sailors that does not extend to toiling farmers and unlucky
butchers.
There has been considerable confusion about which house in Camps
Bay was Ravensteyn, the oldest house in the bay, and some writers, like
Lawrence Green and Mona de Beer, have given this honour to The Retreat.
There are two rivers in Camps Bay. Wernich built his farmhouse near the
better one in order to have an adequate supply of water. His farmhouse
was bought by the Dutch East India Company from Von Kamptz in 1786.
These Dutch properties became British Government properties after the
British Occupation of the Cape and Government House in Camps Bay
near the river was offered to Barnard (1795), was used by Caledon (1807),
Cradock (1811-1814) and Somerset (1817-1823) and was subsequently
sold to Oliphant.
Survey maps and reports by visitors like Burchell in 1810 indicate
clearly that there was only one house in Camps Bay in the first quarter of
the Nineteenth Century, and this was the Government House. As late as
1833 there were still only two residences in Camps Bay those of Horak
(The Round House) and Oliphant (Camps Bay House). The probability is
that Ravensteyn with its outbuildings had become Government House
although by the time Somerset and Jones had finished with it, Wernich
would have had difficulty recognizing his home.
The Government House was a popular subject for artists and despite
name changes can be traced through the drawing of Comfield (c 1823)
which was copied by Thompson (1827), of Webb Smith (1837-39) and of
Bowler ten years later, as well as in representations by unknown artists in
1828 and 1843.
 The Retreat does not have a similar pictorial pedigree. There are no
earlier records of The Retreat which Fransen & Cook date from the 1870s
although suggesting that the row of flat roofed outbuildings with their
straight cornices seem to point to an earlier date.71 However Historical
Property Research has shown The Retreat is a little earlier, probably
having been built between 1857-1860 by Glendinning who owned
Camps Bay as well as the Government House at the time.72 It was built as
a farmhouse, not as a governor’s seaside villa.
Fransen & Cook suggest that Ravensteyn was probably a house called
Camps Bay House on Kloof Nek Road,73 which they say probably does not
date from before 1800, although the gate piers seem older. A map of 1865
indicates an inn in this position, but one from 1800 shows nothing on the
Kloof at all, no Round House, no inn, no farm, but there is a group of
buildings where Government House was.
The oldest house in Camps Bay and the one in which von Kamptz lived
and farmed, is thus the Marine Villa, which has been demolished, NOT
The Retreat, which has fortunately been preserved. Even by today’s
standards, the house would have been regarded as expensively finished,
but we can not judge for ourselves - the City Council in its wisdom tore
down this architectural gem, this example of Regency design, to turn it
into a bowling green!
Councils and governments have scant respect for expensive
architecture.
Only the pictures remain.
No part of this
publication may be reproduced without the prior written consent
of both the publisher and Holiday Rentals in Cape Town
|
