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 Camps Bay’s secret as a supreme beauty spot began to trickle beyond
the confines of the Governors, Attorney-General and visitors to Camps
Bay House who had bumped and jolted along the narrow and dangerous
road to reach the beach. By 1848 a good road round the Kloof had reached
Camps Bay. The road was called Lady Smith’s Pass after the current
Governor’s wife although it was later renamed Kloof Road.
With the new road, the Round House was turned into an hotel offering
every comfort including skittles, quoits and pigeons for sportsmen at 1s
6d a pair. The hotel with dance hall and amusement resort was run from
1849 by Mr M Donaldson. A fire in 1860 destroyed the thatched roof,
leaving the walls intact. The owner of the tearoom at the time was Mr
T.W.L.Titmus, but the proprietor was Mr Edmund Tilley, who fortunately
had had the foresight to insure it for £300, and opened an hotel in
Stellenbosch instead.
 By 1863 the Round House was back in business under a new owner, Mr
Brazier, who extolled the delights of its “umbrageous bowers and
sequestered dells for picnic parties”, plus its two large ballrooms.92 It was
a popular place for holiday excursions and the umbrageous bowers gave
Victorian daughters a chance to escape mama’s watchful eye for a little.
Edmund Tilley must have done well in Stellenbosch because by 1895 he
was back again and on 23 December had been granted the land above the
Round House. By 1901 H Tilley, probably Edmund’s son, was the owner of
the Round House Hotel. Two years later John Kelly took over.93
In 1904 it was in the possession of the City Council who retained it as
a “sylvan retreat and place of refreshment” with Mr D.J.Watson as the
proprietor of the tea room. The Council remained the owners although it
had to be rebuilt after another fire in 1923, which destroyed the thatched
roof. It may have been just a co-incidence but both times that the Round
House caught fire, the same gentleman was living there. It was Mr
T.W.L.Titmus who had owned the tea room when the Round House was
gutted by fire in 1869, and it was the same Mr Titmus who was occupying
the Round House in 1923 when the roof caught fire. This time he lost his
clothing and army records, although rescuing the dog and his prize sitting
hen. The Round House was rebuilt - only the original walls and gun
cupboards remaining.
Camps Bay villa
One of the outbuildings, a flat roofed house, was converted into a
dwelling about 1860, it was used as an annexe to the Round House Hotel.
The facade is topped by a straight moulding with fine French windows. In
1957 this became a youth hostel called Stan’s Halt, named after Stanley
Senney who lost his life climbing Table Mountain. His father helped restore the building in his son’s memory
In 1970 the City Council agreed to improve the Round House and its
surroundings. It remains a popular restaurant.
Even with the new road, and the hotel with its skittles and pigeons,
there were still very few residents around to take advantage of the area
once the carts containing groups of holiday makers and picnickers had
vanished with the summer sun. The only permanent resident was Captain
William W. Glendinning who owned “a vast tract of land in Camps Bay on
which were a house and outbuildings erected by Somerset during his term
of office and said to have been used as a hunting lodge, fully stocked with
game brought from the country.”
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of both the publisher and Holiday Rentals in Cape Town
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