Today the deeds of two Buntons more than a century ago are known by less than several dozen people yet in their heyday they were both well-known but for vastly different reasons. Walter Bunton converted the Grand Hotel into the Bunton’s Grand Hotel, not a mere name change but a conversion into the greatest hotel in the emerging town, fit for the great and good of the Cape, the British Empire and beyond. Upon Walter’s death, his son, Henry, would assume control of the hotel.
On the other hand, Walter’s sister, Harriet Meyer, nee Bunton, had divergent interests. The one for which she made her name was promoting the building of an equestrian monument to commemorate the hundreds of thousands of horses killed during the Anglo Boer War.
Then their life’s candle would gutter and be snuffed out and the light which they shone on the world would gradually fade away, eventually to be forgotten. This blog is an attempt to correct this omission from history.
Main picture: Bunton’s Grand Hotel on the corner of Belmont Terrace and Prospect Hill. It was the most important hotel of its time.
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