Voelklip Throwback 🙂

This image of Voelklip cannot be very accurately dated but is believed to have been taken in the mid-1940s. Obviously, it is an aerial photograph taken from a plane flying from right to left across the scene.

In the foreground of the photo is the bathing beach between Voelklip and Nanny’s Beaches, empty on this day. The first house above the rocks was owned by the family van Blommestein who ran a flourishing butchery business in the town. (A butchery of the same name currently operates in Swartdam Road, but it is owned by another family).

In 1952 the Luyt family built the Birkenhead Hotel on this site, retaining as much as possible of the fishermen’s cottage. In turn, this hotel itself was demolished in 1969, and the site remained vacant until quite recently when two houses were built there. Even more recently these have been remodelled as the boutique hotel, Birkenhead House Hotel.

The flat area in the middle of the image is now a formal parking area, which leads into a series of steps leading down to the beach. The original changing booths can be seen on the far right. Looking inland, it is surprising how much undeveloped land still existed. Voelklip (or Mossel River, as it was known then) was proclaimed a township in the early years of the 20th century. Forty years later it appears to be less than a third developed. Now it is all houses.

I can only guess at the cause of the ‘cloud’ in the background. I believe that it is most likely a fire rather than a dust storm. The plane from which the photo was taken could have been involved in attempts to control the fire.

Image and info shared by Robin Lee of the Hermanus History Society