Page 11 - Bulletin 19 2015

8

and breakwaters. Local examples include all the new Main Road edges recently completed,

the harbour walls, Simon’s Town dry dock, and more famously, Rhodes Memorial. Polished
granite is also widely used in monumental stone masonry. (Figs. 1.11 – 1.13.)

Sedimentary rock eg. limestone, travertine, and sandstone. (Figs. 1.14 – 1.16.) Metamorphic

rock eg. marble, slate and shale. (Figs. 1.17 – 1.19.)

Stones that are locally available include sandstone, granite and slate. Various types include

Cape Granite, Robben Island slate or shale, abundant local sandstones, West Coast sandstone
and dolerite from the Karoo.

We, in the Western Cape have virtually no limestone, marble or travertine - stone which is
readily available in Europe and other parts of the world. The City Hall in Cape Town, for

example, which some people think is Table Mountain Sandstone is actually ship ballast
limestone imported from Bath and used here with local granite coining. (Figs. 1.20 & 1.21.)

I will now be quoting from a few sources which might seem a bit theoretical to some but in

fact what is being said is quite simple and I believe very relevant to the conditions we find

ourselves facing today. There has been much written about stone over the years. A lot of what
has been written is in relation to European buildings and, in particular, limestone and marble

which is the material that gives cities like Venice or Rome their extraordinary character.
However, sandstone too has its own special qualities and I have chosen the following quotes

to outline the general thinking on the use of stone, which in turn will reinforce and give added

meaning to our experience of places like Muizenberg, St. James and Kalk Bay. Discussions
about stone tend to bring out the poetry of things and the following descriptions will make

this evident. (Fig. 1.22.)

Local architect WJ Delbridge (1878 - 1946) came from a long family history of Cornish

stonemasons. In a piece he wrote for Architect Builder & Engineer in 1918, he said “The
dignity of stonework, its power, its permanence and its unfailing interest for the artist need to

be proclaimed in our midst. It is wonderful how much honest pride and pleasure can be put
into and derived from even the simplest stone wall”. (Figs. 1.23 & 1.24.)