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Families, Personalities and Summer Activities

Maarten van Diggelen

Introduction

In 1818 Coleridge wrote:

“If men could learn from history what lessons it might teach us!
But passion and party blind our eyes and the light which experience gives

is a lantern on the stern which shines only on the waves behind us!”

What can this history of some of Kalk Bay’s families, personalities and summer activities tell us?

The Malherbe Family

Some of the visitors who came here in the summer and decided to stay soon became part of the

local community. Elise Malherbe (now Taylor) recalls:

In the mid 1800s a farmer, van Blerk, settled in the Silvermine area with his wife. One of their

sons married a Miss Malherbe and they continued the farming operation developing their new
farm in the ‘Kleintuin’ valley now called Clovelly. They then moved to Kalk Bay, invested in

various cottages and lived in the house ‘Clairvaux’ on the corner of Harbour and Clairvaux
roads.

Their daughter Bessie married Marthinus Malherbe of Tulbagh who was descended from another
branch of the Malherbe’s. They built False Bay Flats and then False Bay House in 1918. This

latter property is one of two situated directly behind this Community Centre. The other is
Douglas Cottage into which the McCready’s later moved.

Marthinus and Bessie’s first daughter, Suzanne, married my brother Herk van Diggelen.

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