Page 69 - KBHA Bulletin 16

66

buildings and all of the large sections of vacant land were owned and developed by

one person between the early 1900s and the late 1920s. With all of the new building
already described on the other side of the road (Pratten, Schechter, Goles) it can be

seen that in this relatively short period Windsor Road was transformed into a street of
new buildings – most of them used as rented accommodation.

The Christian Adams Family

Research at the Archives turned up extensive plans and drawings in Windsor Road in
the name of Christian May Adams. There is a very well known Adams family living

in Belmont Road and it seemed obvious that this must be a relative, but at first

information was very skimpy about a person who had been a major property owner.
Certainly the oral history of him seems to have disappeared from the collective

memory in this area. (Fig. 2.32.)

Christian is first mentioned in an 1886 directory listing him as a farrier and wagon
maker at Kalk Bay. He was the cousin of the ancestor of the Belmont Road Adams

family and they had both been born in Paarl. He married Elizabeth Franzina Florez,

(Fig. 2.33.) daughter of the famous Felix Florez of ‘Alabama’ and Kalk Bay fame. In
later life she became a nurse and midwife and as Sister Adams delivered countless

babies in Kalk Bay. Christian had at least 14 children of whom the youngest, now
Gladys Thomas, is a very well-known poet living in Ocean View.

All the records show that not only was Christian a very successful farrier and
blacksmith (WP gold medallist twice) but was also a very successful entrepreneur and

developer. He started at the bottom of Windsor Road, above the King’s Hotel
complex, and through sheer hard work, taking mortgages from major Wynberg

businessmen, owned the whole of the right hand side of the road, on which he built

most of the buildings we see today. In 1920, at the height of the fish-curing plant
petition, Christian Adams’ son wrote a letter to the Council pointing out that his father

was totally opposed to the proposed plant and owned eleven houses in Windsor Road.