Remembering Durban's grand Marine Hotel: A lost landmark with a bay view

IOL News

21-05-2025

And artist's drawing of the Marine Hotel shortly after its construction in 1902.
Image: Supplied
The old picture this week was sent to us by keen Then & Now follower Peter Sharland from Hillcrest. It is a limited edition print (No 100) of Durban's gracious Marine Hotel that was drawn many years ago, the artist not known.
Sharland remembers his grandmother lived at the hotel for seventeen years from 1947 to 1963. 'We visited her from Lusaka every three years,' he says.
The famed hotel was built at the bottom of what was the Gardiner Street, today Dorothy Nyembe, with sweeping views over the bay. On the other corner stood the more modest Twines Hotel, which opened in 1902 while the Marine was still being built. The Hotel soon became regarded as Durban's top hotel.
The site of the office tower The Marine today.
Image: Leon Lestrade Independent Newspapers
The 1932 survey picture from eThekwini shows the bayshore at Gardiner Street with the Marine Hotel on the righthand corner. The Gardiner Street Jetty in the foreground was later often used to land flying boat passengers. The statue of Dick King was right in front of the hotel.
Today considerable reclamation has been made to the bayshore.
The hotel was demolished in 1972.
A 1932 survey photograph of Durban showing the Marine Hotel
Image: eThekwini Municipality
In its seventy year history it played host among many other eminent people, including the Prince of Wales in 1923, Prince George in 1934 and Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands in 1954. The lifting of the siege of Mafekeng was celebrated in the hotel and a framed copy of the dinner menu in the reception area revealed that the dishes on offer had included Kruger Marrow Bones on Toast [Paul Kruger being President of the Transvaal at the time].
A number of permanent residents had to seek other accommodation when the Marine was closed including Mrs Leslie Leuchards who had lived there in a suite for 50 years and had always dined at table number 13. Mrs Leuchards then moved to the Royal Hotel.
The modern multi-storey office tower, called The Marine, stands on the site today.