Page 29 - Bulletin 13 2009

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first time that classes were extended to matric. This lasted until 1981 when the school
again reverted to Standard Five (today’s Grade Seven).

In the early 1920s Father Duignam and a Basuto labourer, named Sam, built a tennis

court for the children below Boyes Drive behind the convent at the top of what was

known a Nun's Walk. Sam was an excellent stone mason and the walls of the tennis
court were built from stone quarried from the St James Mountain. Neither cement nor

mortar were used and the walls only collapsed after the great Tulbagh earthquake in
1969. Sam was also employed to plant the blue-gum trees behind the convent which are

still there to this day.

The attendance at Star grew at a steady pace and by 1944 a major extension was

undertaken when a new classroom block was built alongside the convent on the Jacob’s
Ladder (south) side. The architects were Norman Lubynski and Werthmueller and the

builder K. Mann of Fish Hoek. In addition to this work Mann also built a scullery,

further bathrooms, and a dining room. All the work was signed off as complete in
August 1945. The number of pupils at Star had now reached two hundred and eight.

During the period 1945-1948 various extensions were undertaken which included

enlarging the laundry and dining room. A block of toilets for the Senior School and a
dormitory with two classrooms below were also completed. (The same architects and

builders were used as for the 1944 extension.) The old tennis court and surrounding

grounds immediately below Boyes Drive were sold off to Rex Walker to raise sufficient
funds for these extensions. Arrangements were now made to use the public tennis courts

on the Main Road, St. James until a new tennis court south of Maryville, the pre-
primary school, was built.

In 1949 the old Mission School was converted into a school hall. (The Mission School

had moved to Kalk Bay). Joseph Rubbi (Pty.) Ltd. completed the builder’s work on the

conversion of the hall, as well as further alterations to classrooms and the creation of an
additional music-room. A photographic record from this time survives. (Figs. 1.14 - 19).