Fish Hoek, Cape Town - Conference Venues Fish Hoek Cape Town

Fish Hoek - Cape Town Suburb

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Conference Venues in Fish Hoek, Cape Town
Avenue Hotel Conference Venue
Calders Hotel & Conference Centre

Fish Hoek is a coastal village in a valley at the mouth of the Silvermine River, on the False Bay side of the Cape Peninsula in Cape Town. Previously a separate municipality of Cape Town, Fish Hoek is now part of the City of Cape Town Metropolitan Municipality. As a coastal suburb of Cape Town, Fish Hoek is popular as a residence for commuters, retired people and holidaymakers alike. The traditional industries of 'trek' fishing and angling coexist with the leisure pursuits of surfing, sailing and sunbathing.

After being part of the transitional South Peninsula Municipality from 1996 to 2000, Fish Hoek now falls under the City of Cape Town. Today Fish Hoek is regarded as a suburb of greater Cape Town and lies on the railway line from the central business district of that city to Simon's Town in the south.

It is approximately 30 kilometres by road from Fish Hoek to the centre of Cape Town, a journey that can take anything from 30 minutes to two hours, depending on the traffic. Fish Hoek is a "dry" area - one of the conditions placed by the owner who gave the land for development was that there be no alcohol sold there. Nowadays, alcohol is available in restaurants and bars but there are no bottle stores.

Fish Hoek has become well-known as a tourist resort and as a place where elderly people retire. Fish Hoek and its surrounding suburbs are served by the local False Bay Echo newspaper, originally the Fish Hoek Echo, and the Peoples Post. Schools include Fish Hoek Primary, Fish Hoek High School and Paul Greyling Primary. Fish Hoek has one of the loveliest and safest beaches on the False Bay Coast. It is an ideal family beach and its calm bay is almost guaranteed to provide good swimming, snorkeling along the rocks and a lot of sandy beach to make sand castles or on which to soak up the sun.

During whale watching season, whales and their offspring often cavort in these waters, whilst canoeists carefully circle to catch a close-up inspection.

History of Fish Hoek
Fish Hoek or Vissers Baay or Visch Hoek appears on the earliest maps of the Cape. The arrival of European settlers in 1652 forced the indigenous population to leave the area, and during the 1700s farmers appeared in the Noordhoek area. Fish Hoek beach was used on an informal basis for whaling and fishing, but it was not until 1918 that it was laid out as a township. The first grant of Crown land in Fish Hoek was granted to Andreas Bruins in 1818. The land was sold several times before being bought by Hester Sophia de Kock in 1883. She was then a spinster of 51 years old. In 1901, late in life, she married a local farmer, one Jacob Isaac de Villiers, who came to live with her on the farm. Although she farmed wheat and vegetables' she started providing accommodation for people who wanted to stay in Fish Hoek, and so became the first local tourist entrepreneur. Having realized that Fish Hoek was becoming popular, she left instructions in her will that the farm was to be surveyed and the land sold as building plots. After the deaths of Hester and Jacob, the land was sold off, the first sale taking place in 1918. The oldest house on the bay, now named Uitkyk, was bought as a fishermans cottage in 1918 by the Mossop family of Mossop Leathers, and is still in the Mossop family. There had been a building on that site since the 1690s; a Pos Huis (post house) and a whaling station office is all that is known of its history.

This was the beginning of the town of Fish Hoek. Initially people built holiday cottages but as there was a good train service to Cape Town a more permanent community soon arose. By 1940 it was big enough to be declared a municipality and was administered by the Town Council until 1996. Hester and Issac de Villiers, with other members of their family are buried in the small graveyard next to the NG Kerk (Dutch Reformed Church) in Kommetjie Road. The farmhouse on the site of the present Homestead Naval Mess near the railway crossing became an hotel. The original building subsequently burned down in 1947.

Cape Town Suburbs
Bantry Bay, Bellville, Bloubergrant, Bloubergstrand, Brackenfell, Camps Bay, Cape Town Central/City Bowl, Claremont, Constantia, Durbanville, Fish Hoek, Fresnaye, Gordon's Bay, Green Point, Hout Bay, Kenilworth, Lakeside, Melkbosstrand, Milnerton, Muizenberg, Newlands, Noordhoek, Observatory, Parow, Pinelands, Rondebosch, Sea Point, Simon's Town, Sir Lowry's Pass, Somerset West, Strand, Table View, Tokai, Tygerberg.

Map of Fish Hoek