Sea-Cow Lake

What if I told you Sea-Cow Lake got its name from a hungry hippo with a penchant for greenery? Here we are, standing at the edge of Sea-Cow Lake in Durban, a place whose name whispers a tale of a bygone era. Sea-Cow Lake today is a residential suburb in central Durban. But its history holds a touch of the wild. Sea-Cow Lake, as it was known then, earned its name from the hippos that once grazed its banks. Imagine Durban in the late 1800s. One can picture a pioneer family, the Smiths, arriving in the Sea Cow Lake/Kenville area. They established a sprawling 50-acre nursery named “The Rosary”. They even had a florist shop on Smith Street, one of the first in Durban. Smithfield Road and Rosary Road stand as testaments to their enterprise. Now, back to our hungry hippo. Legend says the last hippo in Sea-Cow Lake met its end at the hands of Mr. Smith himself. It seems the hippo, true to its nature, had developed a taste for the Smith family’s precious plants. One day, driven to protect his livelihood, Mr. Smith shot the hippo. The story goes that this hippo was preserved and displayed at the Durban Natural History Museum, later finding a new home at NCP Yeast, also in Sea-Cow Lake Road. Sea-Cow Lake, once a hippo’s haven, transformed into a vibrant community, a testament to the pioneers who shaped its destiny. In the late 1800s, it wasn’t uncommon for white and Indian communities to coexist here. Later, during the apartheid era, the government declared it an Indian-only area, forever changing the demographics of Sea-Cow Lake. The original Smith house, built in the 1800s, still stands proudly on Smithfield Road, a silent witness to the area’s rich and complex history. Sea-Cow Lake is more than just a suburb. It is a place where the echoes of hippos mingle with the stories of pioneers and where the name itself carries a legacy, etched in both nature and human endeavour.