When you drive along Cape Town's M3 towards Muizenberg, between the Ladies Mile and the Tokai off-ramp, on the left-hand side, you see the Dreyersdal farm. The main buildings have been turned into a conference centre, but there are still some out buildings and the occasional cow that remain from a time when this was a rural community.
Originally started the project to improve my photography skills. Over a 2500 photos later it's become a personal diary. I post pictures that mark my...
@Kate: Your question about "Ladies Mile" ... I can't confirm my instinctive reply with the resource material I have to hand, but I believe it was named after Lady Anne Barnard, a British socialite who lived at the Cape around 1800, and used to ride in this area. I'd be delighted to hear if anyone knows anything else about the name.
@Kate: A friend found this information, which has an authentic ring... :
How Ladies Mile got its name
According to Royston Lamond in his book Silverhurst in the valley of Constantia, the road's name comes from the early 1800s, when Constantia was still rural farmland wit...h only a handful of thatch-roofed homesteads. The widow Colyn would ride along a bridle path that cut across a neighbour's farm. Farmer Dreyer, the neighbour, not being particularly fond of the good widow, requested that she ride elsewhere and an abrasive run-in resulted. A legal battle ultimately ensued, recorded in the annals of the Wynberg Magistrates Court, where the case was eventually rebutted. Undeterred, Dreyer appealed to the High Court in Cape Town and won. The indignant widow Colyn played the trump card by appealing to the King in Council – the supreme legal entity in London – and won. Nothing could thereafter legally stop her from riding across her neighbour's farm and the locals gave the path a name: Ladies Mile.
July 28th, 2010
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How Ladies Mile got its name
According to Royston Lamond in his book Silverhurst in the valley of Constantia, the road's name comes from the early 1800s, when Constantia was still rural farmland wit...h only a handful of thatch-roofed homesteads. The widow Colyn would ride along a bridle path that cut across a neighbour's farm. Farmer Dreyer, the neighbour, not being particularly fond of the good widow, requested that she ride elsewhere and an abrasive run-in resulted. A legal battle ultimately ensued, recorded in the annals of the Wynberg Magistrates Court, where the case was eventually rebutted. Undeterred, Dreyer appealed to the High Court in Cape Town and won. The indignant widow Colyn played the trump card by appealing to the King in Council – the supreme legal entity in London – and won. Nothing could thereafter legally stop her from riding across her neighbour's farm and the locals gave the path a name: Ladies Mile.