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did, however, choose to frequent these two hotels. This relatively wind-free suburb was an

up-market residential area and the hotels were structured along these lines.

St. James Hotel

On 15 October 1822 Carel Willem Langerman was granted a large tract of land in quitrent

along the seafront at Kalk Bay (area now referred to as St. James) by the Colonial

Government. In 1825 his son Carel George Langerman bought part of this grant, with
buildings, from his mother who had been widowed some two years earlier. She had remarried

early in 1825 and, as Mrs. Bernardina Magdalena Roedolff, sold him 21.5 morgen at a price

of 18,000 guilders. He acquired a bond of 8,100 guilders from the District Treasury of the
Cape Colony Government which he had to repay at 900 guilders a year for 9 years. It was on

lots 1 - 3 (erven 88394/6) of this large property that the St. James Hotel was later to be built.

Langerman divided his land into a number of lots. Lot 1 (1.5 morgen) had no buildings and

ran alongside the Main Road. In July 1840 Joseph De Vries bought this lot for £25-15-0d

from Langerman’s insolvent estate. He sold this site to Lt. Colonel Henry Ashton some 21
years later, on 21 March 1861. The price had risen to £250 and no buildings were referred to

in the title deeds.

Ashton returned to England in 1871 and was represented by the Board of Executors in the

next sale of this property, which was to Hermann Rupert, on 1 March 1876. The price was

now £400 and it was in this sale that the title deeds first recorded the existence of a cottage,
known as ‘Botheration Cottage’. It can therefore safely be assumed that Lt. Colonel Ashton

had built this cottage between 1861/71. Ashton had a large home in Kalk Bay on the site of

what was later to become the Holy Trinity Church and throughout his ownership of
‘Botheration Cottage’ he had tenants on the premises. The unusual name of the cottage arose

because of a large boulder which could not be moved and around which part of the building
was constructed.

Hermann Rupert also bought Lot 2 (1.5 morgen) which ran behind Lot 1. This lot had no
buildings and he acquired it in June, some three months after buying Lot 1 from Ashton. The

seller was J. C. Wicht, and the price was £75.