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Trappies Kop. All of these were concluded successfully and on 28 February 1929 Council
decided to take transfer of the SAR & H land “…….in connection with the linking of Loch
Road to Clovelly Estate.” The SAR & H signed the Deed of Grant on 30 December 1929.
All construction of Boyes Drive must have been concluded by late 1928 or early 1929
because on 30 January 1929 the Council advertised a tender for the removal of the convict
station and making good of the site. (Fig. 3.14.) The tender was awarded to City Coal and
General Supply Co. who completed the job in two weeks and paid the Council £25 for doing
so. It is believed that Boyes Drive was opened officially by Councillor Abdullah
Abdurahman, Chairman of the Streets and Drainage Committee, and a film clip of a drive
along it appeared in the African Mirror of 4 February 1929. Later that year parts of the Drive
above St. James and Kalk Bay were beautified by the planting of cypress and flowering gum
trees, some of which survive to this day.
Concurrently with the construction of Boyes Drive, Main Road was being widened, and the
railway was being electrified, doubled, straightened and expanded into the beach zone, to the
great consternation of the local community. The numerous pedestrian steps leading upslope
from Main Road were also connected with the Drive. In these ways, between 1924 – 1929,
the outlines of Kalk Bay – St. James were ‘rounded off’ and have changed little during the
last 70 years. A variety of views of Boyes Drive before, during and after construction are
shown in Figs. 3.15 – 3.22.
Motoring and associated activities in the south Peninsula in the 1930s
Internationally, the world of motoring had been transformed by Henry Ford’s 1909 Model T and
the later 1927 Model A. Locally, Cape Town’s first Motor Show opened in Paarden Eiland in
January 1929. During the 1920s and 1930s the automobile progressively displaced horse-drawn
vehicles in the major cities of the Union and on some town routes was competing successfully
against the trams and rail services. The interests of the motoring public were promoted by
influential organizations, one of which was the Royal Automobile Club of South Africa which
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