A Colossus of Roads – Patricia Storrar

The average traveller gives little thought to the engineering skills, hard work and often dangerous conditions that were faced by Thomas Charles John Bain (1830-1893) in his great road-making career: Some of Bain’s century-old roads are still in use today and the magnificent dry-stone walling stands intact in passes such as Prince Alfred’s, Swartberg and Van Rhyn’s; Bain’s abandoned road through Cogman’s Kloof again became the only means of access to Montagu during the disastrous floods in 1980 and only in 1983 was his ambitious Tsitsikama Road, from Knysna to Humansdorp, superseded by a sweeping throughway with links of magnificent bridges.

Thomas constructed twenty-three major mountain roads and so outshone even his father, Andrew Geddes Bain (1797-1864), as a road-builder. It was from him that Thomas inherited his wide-ranging mind and deep interest in the natural sciences, especially geology. In order to make the publication of the book feasible, it is being sponsored by Murray & Roberts in conjunction with Concor.

Patricia Storrar, author of George Rex and Plettenberg Bay, has delved deeply into the records of Thomas’s life, his hand-made roads, varied hobbies and family life. She has produced an exciting and authoritative account of his pioneering achievements in the Cape Colony. The story is greatly enhanced by Gunther Komnick’s splendid photography of the kloofs, valleys and timeless mountains which Thomas Bain set out to broach more than a hundred years ago.