Fish Hoek, Cape Town

Fish Hoek (Afrikaans: "Vishoek", meaning either Fish Corner, Fish Glen or fish-hook) is a coastal village nestled in a valley at the mouth of the Silvermine River, on the False Bay side of the Cape Peninsula in Cape Town, South Africa. Previously a separate municipality of Cape Town, Fish Hoek is now part of the Cape Town Unicity. It is approximately 35 kilometres by road from Fish Hoek to the centre of Cape Town, a journey that can take anything from 30 minutes to two hours, depending on the traffic. There is also a good suburban railway link with Cape Town. As a coastal suburb of Cape Town, Fish Hoek is popular as a residence for commuters and holidaymakers alike. The traditional industries of 'trek' fishing and angling coexist with the leisure pursuits of surfing, sailing and sunbathing. Fish Hoek is famous for being a "dry" area - one of the conditions placed by the owner who gave the land for development was that there be no alcohol sold there. Nowadays, alcohol is available in restaurants and bars but there are no bottle stores.

History

Fish Hoek or Vissers Baay or Visch Hoek appears on the earliest maps of the Cape. The arrival of European settlers in 1652 forced the indigenous population to leave the area, and during the 1700s farmers appeared in the Noordhoek area. Fish Hoek beach was used on an informal basis for whaling and fishing, but it was not until 1918 that it was laid out as a township.

The first grant of Crown Land in Fish Hoek was granted to Andreas Bruins in 1818. The land was sold several times before being bought by Hester Sophia de Kock in 1883. She was then a spinster of 51 years old. In 1901, late in life, she married a local farmer, one Jacob Isaac de Villiers who came to live with her on the farm.Although she farmed wheat and vegetables she started providing accommodation for people who wanted to stay in Fish Hoek, and so became the first local tourist entrepreneur. Fish Hoek has remained, with its situation and views, a beacon of extra-ordinary accommodation ever since. Having realised that Fish Hoek was becoming popular she left instructions in her will that the farm was to be surveyed and the land sold as building plots. After the deaths of Hester and Jacob, the land was sold off, the first sale taking place in 1918.

The oldest house, on the bay, now named Uitkyk, was bought as a fishermans cottage in 1918 by the Mossop family of Mossop Leathers, and is still in the Mossop family. There had been a building on that site since the 1690s, a Pos Huis and a whaling station office is all that is known of its history.

This was the beginning of the town of Fish Hoek. Initially people built holiday cottages but as there was a good train service to Cape Town a more permanent community soon arose. By 1940 it was big enough to be declared a municipality and was administered by the Town Council until 1996. After being part of the transitional South Peninsula Municipality from 1996 to 2000, it is now under the City of Cape Town.

Hester and Issac de Villiers, with other members of their family are buried in the small graveyard next to the NG Kerk (Dutch Reformed Church) in Kommetjie Road.

The farmhouse on the site of the present Homestead Naval Mess near the railway crossing became an hotel. The original building subsequently burned down in 1947.

Today Fish Hoek is regarded as a suburb of greater Cape Town and lies on the railway line from the central business districts of that city to Simon's Town in the south.

Fish Hoek has become well-known as a tourist resort and as a place where elderly people retire from more northern latitudes.

Fish Hoek and its surrounding suburbs are served by the local False Bay Echo newspaper, originally the Fish Hoek Echo, and the Peoples Post.

Schools include Fish Hoek Primary, Fish Hoek High School and Paul Greyling Primary.

Geography and climate

Fish Hoek is situated in a broad, low valley, between two and three kilometres wide, which runs from west to east across the girth of the Cape Peninsula. When sealevels were higher than they are today the valley used to be a sea passage that separated the Cape Peninsula into northern and southern islands. Fish Hoek is at the eastern end of the valley. The villages of Noordhoek and Kommetjie are at the western end, on the Atlantic coast. The valley is generally sandy and the bedrock is Cape granite. In places this is deeply weathered and in the past the rotted granite was mined for pockets of the mineral kaolinite, which is used to make ceramic goods such as hand basins and bath tubs. The valley is famous for 12,000 year old paleolithic skeletons discovered in a cave (now called Peer's Cave or Peers' Cave) by Bertie Peers and his father in 1927. Bertie Peers was a lover and explorer of the great outdoors, a fine amateur scientist and a dedicated naturalist but his enthusiasm eventually cost him his life, when he was fatally struck by a puff adder (Greenland, 1978).

Fish Hoek has a balmy mediterranean climate and is spared over hot summer days by the frequent visits of the south-easterly gales known locally as "the Cape Doctor". It has a fine long beach and is a good spot for swimming and fishing. In the scan above, the beach is seen from high ground on the southern margin of the valley and the view is roughly towards the north west. The mountains nearby are famous for large numbers of complex caves in sandstones of the Table Mountain Group. Caves are usually found in limestones and it is not common to find complex cave systems in pure sandstone.

References

* Greenland, Cedryl 1978. The story of Peers' Cave. C. Greenland, Cape Town, 35pp.
* History of Fish Hoek - [http://www.awhaleofatime.co.za/fish-hoek.php A Whale of a time]

External links

* [http://www.fishhoek.com Promotional site about Fish Hoek]
* [http://www.awhaleofatime.co.za Self catering accommodation in Fish Hoek]
* [http://www.capetown.ic.cz Cape Town travel guide - Fish Hoek]
* [http://www.fhbsc.hobieclass.com Fish Hoek Beach Saling Club]