Then & Now: Margate Beach

Published Sep 19, 2019

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Durban - This week’s picture taken in the seaside town of Margate shows its main beach and swimming pool (on a postcard), was probably issued in the 1970s.

There was some difficulty getting exactly the same vantage point because a new lifesaving tower obscured half the pool area, but the development along the beach is clear to see.

Margate took its name from the original farm named Margate, named by English surveyor Henry Richardson after Margate in England. The farm was bought in 1919 by Hugh Ballance for £466. Ballance chose the farm for “its beautiful beach and congenial scenery” - but farming was not to be its destiny. In 1921 he subdivided it into half-acre plots and formed a township which he initially called Inkongweni, after the river.

Because of its remoteness, sales were understandably sluggish. In 1922 the “Margate Monster” brought the town fame around the world.

Called Trunko, the 14m-long marine creature was described by the then Daily Mail as being a “Fish like a polar bear”. Reports state its fish-like body seemed to have no head, but rather a 1.5m-long trunk coming straight from the torso and a long, lobster-like tail. Its body was covered in 20cm-long white hairs.

On November 1, 1922, Ballance and a handful of witnesses spotted two whales fighting with this creature off Margate Beach, in a three-hour battle that resulted in the death of the mysterious creature.

The corpse washed up on the beach later that day. Although the carcass lay on the beach for two weeks before it was washed away by the spring tide, not a single photograph was taken of it nor any sketch made. Did it really happen or was it an attempt to draw attention to the area to boost income?

We will never know, but it did ensure Margate became the hugely popular holiday destination it is today.

Margate was declared a township in January 1941 and received municipal status in 1947.

Its Blue Flag beach has 14 off-shore shark nets and a permanent contingent of professional lifesavers.

The Independent on Saturday

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