Contact Artefacts please if you have any comments or more information regarding this record.	Menu Home Upfront Now Up Books Towns Structures People Firms Lexicon		Cecil Terrace Salt River, Western Cape Henry RYDER: Architect

Date: 1903 Type: Shop with attached row houses Style: Edwardian : Eclecticism Status: Extant Street: C/o Cecil Road and Dryden Street   Click to view map Coordinates: Alt: 19m

Erf 15956-RE, on the corner of Cecil Road and Dryden Street, Salt River, came up for development during the building boom of 1900 to 1904. Two sets of building plans were submitted to the Woodstock Municipality for development approval. The first set, numbered 744 and dated 31 March 1903, lists the proprietor as M. Mayers of 29 Mount Street, and the architect as R. M. Robertson . The second set of building plans, numbered 834, is dated 8 July 1903, and lists the proprietors as Meyers and Gotsman of 29 Mount Street. This submission bears the stamp of the architect Henry Ryder, Harrowgate House, Salt River. Ryder’s design is the project that was built as ‘Cecil Terrace’. Henry Ryder’s project for Meyers and Gotsman on Erf 15956-RE included six single-storey terrace houses, facing Cecil Road, and a corner shop with a single-storey house facing Dryden Road. This shop-house is the subject of this report. The typology of ‘shop and houses’ development were common in Woodstock and Salt River at the time. Among Ryder’s work there are, in addition to the Greeff project referred to above, three other projects with a similar programme: 1901, a shop and dwellings in Mountain Road, Woodstock (for Gadsby); 1902, a shop and dwellings in Fairview Avenue, Woodstock (for Griffiths and Pender); and 1903, a shop and dwellings on the corner of Roodebloem Road and Salisbury Street (for C Bee). The architectural style of Cecil Terrace is Edwardian. The shop is directed to the intersection of Cecil Street and Dryden Road and faces south-east. The façade on at the corner is angled 45° to face the intersection and ends in a half-round semi-circular pediment with relief text: ‘Cecil Terrace 1903’. Architectural details include: a coping along the top of the building with pedestals (urns on drawing, not on building); a projecting cornice with entablature architrave; decorative plaster quoining around the double-door entranceway; decorative plaster surrounds around windows; lintels visible above larger shopfront windows; Victorian styled air vents. In essence, Cecil Terrace consists of two parts: the shop and the house. The shop is relatively unaltered. Most of the architectural elements are still in place. The house is substantially altered: an additional floor was added, and all the windows were changed. (Steenkamp, 2019: pers. com.)