Monday, December 3, 2007

Rainy Day in the Bay

Taken from Central, looking towards Richmond Hill, with the old historic settlers graveyard to the right, and below the church whose steeple you see here. Many of these are the original buildings from the late 1800s. This was one of the earlier parts developed when the city was established.

The road running downhill, left to right is known as Russell Road, after the then Governor of the Cape Colony, Lord Russell. It was formerly a steep river valley with cliffs along part of it, called Hyman's Kloof after one of the settlers who landed here in 1820. The pools along the river were a favourite place for truant schoolboys to hide out in the mid 1800s. The land that some of these buildings stand on was sold off to raise funds for the construction of the road.

8 comments:

  1. These houses look so clean and crisp! It's a picture postcard photo, and I mean that in the best way!

    ReplyDelete
  2. After the rain the atmosphere looks so clear and the colors so vibrant! Beautiful photo!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Such a pretty place. I would love to visit South Africa. The road looks slippery.

    ReplyDelete
  4. It's not hard to imagine this road as a river valley in a previous life...especially in the rain ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  5. I love the blue houses/building interspersed throughout!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Such a lovely grouping of houses. I find the darling hip roofed white house particularly appealing.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I love this style too. Because many of the early settlers were Scottish, the more austere, clean-lined Scottish architecture was common in the area, especially in the earlier buildings, although we do have some very elaborate ones too, especially the Victorian ones that came a little later.

    ReplyDelete
  8. These buildings were in fact flats. The dark blue and light grey in front. I lived in the top unit of the light grey block. They were known as 67 a,b,c & d Russell Road.

    ReplyDelete