Ancestry24’s  volunteers and “Friends of the Crypt” are going to photograph Muizenberg Cemetery on 22 January. If anybody is looking for a breeding ground for Olympic size moles – this is the place to come to. This cemetery especially the Jewish section has been severely vandalised and Vandals have stripped the Tahara hall at the Muizenberg cemetery virtually bare – even making off with the burglar bars installed to protect it.
Sigmund Saffer, president of the Muizenberg Hebrew congregation, said anything that could be removed, had been stolen.
He said some people had even used the two ceremonial basins to clean their fish.
“They were beautiful carved basins with copper spigots which were used to gut fish. There would be scales everywhere.”
Now mourners have to bring their own 20 litre barrels of water to wash their hands during burial ceremonies.
Saffer said the Tahara hall, was built in the early 1920s. “In those days bodies were brought here to be prepared for burial.”
But now, the bodies were prepared elsewhere and only the coffin was brought to the temple which used to be able to accommodate between 30 and 40 people.

Saffer said the thieves broke in and stole the copper piping and 3m high teak doors.
“People started camping on the verandah around the temple so we put in a trellis door to try to stop that, but they stole that as well.”
Saffer said the only thing that could not be stolen was the concrete dome roof.
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“It was beyond a joke. The insurers were laughing and so were the cops.”
He said that fixing the temple became too expensive so it was decided to demolish the structure.
The new plan is to build a concrete platform with a vandal-proof roof for mourners to use when they bury their loved ones.

But, until then, mourners just have to make do.  View the cemetery Gallery
Become involved in our Cemetery recording project.

Muizenberg is a residential suburb within the municipal area of Cape Town, situated about 25 km south of Cape Town on False Bay, in the magisterial district of Simonstown, This old summer holiday has with extensive sandy beaches and excellent bathing and surfing; the water temperature is usually 6°C higher than in Table Bay, owing to a warm current circulating in False Bay.

Originally a cattle post in 1673, it was transformed into an important military outpost when Simon’s Bay became the official winter anchorage for the Dutch East India Company in 1743. The town, previously Steenberghoek, derives its name from Wynand Willem Muijs (Muijs zijn berg = Muijs’s mountain), the sergeant in charge of the post in 1744, and later commander of the garrison. In 1’744 the outpost was referred to as Muijzenburg, but in 1788 the name was written as Muizenberg.When the British arrived in 1’795 and took Simons Bay, the Dutch forces fortified Muizenberg. They attempted to hold the narrow strip of beach between the mountain and the sea, along which the road ran, but were driven from their positions by the fire of the British fleet which anchored off Muizenberg in shallow water and gave artillery support to the advancing British troops.

Muizenberg became the halfway house to Simonstown, and Farmer Peck’s Hotel,opened in 1825, was the favourite stopping-place. It was connected to Cape Town by a good road, and in1883 the suburban railway line reached Muizenberg. During the Second Anglo-Boer War Muizenberg became the favourite convalescent centre and resort for thousands of Imperial troops.

During the First World War Muizenberg’s popularity increased, and a  pavilion was built. This was later replaced by a larger pavilion, since demolished, and promenade. Plans for the construction of a large marina, the first in South Africa, were well advanced by 1972. But sadly by the mid 1980’s Muizenberg’s hey day was over and the decline and deterioration of this once rich and famous holiday resort had died.