March 5, 2020
Writer: Dr Robin Lee In 1896, two events occurred in Hermanus that began the long life of the town as a tourist destination – as it still is today. The first event was the building of a Sanatorium in Marine Drive. Dr Hoffmann and his wife launched this initiative to […]
March 5, 2020
In last week’s article (Visbaai – The history of Hermanus as a fishing village) we followed the rise and fall of the fishing economy around Visbaai, resulting in a fishing culture that still lives on. But, Hermanus became equally famous for another kind of fishing, which also had economic consequences, […]
March 5, 2020
The history of Hermanus as a fishing village 1855-1960 Writer: Dr Robin Lee F or the first 100 years of its life, Hermanus was a fishing village. True, fishing became industrialised, and the village became a town. But, in the popular mind, fishing was the ethos of the settlement, and […]
February 3, 2020
The Village Explorer Writer: Dr Robin Lee The Overstrand coastline is full of caves. This is because the entire coast and even mountains now kilometres inland were under the sea for millions of years. The Table Mountain Sandstone deposits, which predominate in this area, had many weak spots, and scouring […]
February 3, 2020
Hermanus Times Writer: Dr Robin Lee To the families who stepped ashore at Hermanuspietersfontein in 1855 it must have seemed Walker Bay (as we know it) would produce never-ending catches of fish. They did not bother to think of a specific name for the cove where they landed. It was […]
January 3, 2020
Members of the Hermanus History Society have been working with others to produce a really top class introduction to Hermanus, aimed at tourists, and people visiting family or friends. It contains the best photographs of aspects of the town that I have ever seen. I am sending a scan of […]
January 3, 2020
Vladimir Tretchikoff (1913–2006) remains a very well-known artist of the 20th century, not accorded much value by academics and critics, but extremely popular. He is most famous for the painting Chinese Girl, which has the record of being the original painting of which the highest number of prints have been […]
September 11, 2019
Writer Elaine Davie Before the holiday makers and the tourists, before the seaside mansions, the art galleries and the restaurants, there were the fisher folk of Hermanus. Without them the town would not have existed. Yet in the history of the region, their rich and poignant story has largely been […]