Come rain or come shine… we walk the city to discover our history

I took a group of 25 international journalists on a walking tour of the Cape Town Central City this morning. The weather was awful, a typical wet Cape winter’s day, but true to our motto – we walk, come rain or shine – we set off in good spirits. The group is out here to cover the opening of the new Taj Palace Hotel in St George’s Mall this weekend. (See David Smith’s article on the Taj opening and the walking tour that appeared in the Guardian)

Corner Wale and Adderley Street

My aim was to introduce them to the history of Cape Town (and by extension, South Africa) by taking them on a tour of just eight city blocks of the Taj Palace Hotel. In two hours, with reference to the surrounding streets and buildings, we were able to discuss:

• 70 000 years of human habitation in the region
• Camissa, the place of sweet waters (the indigenous name for Cape Town) and early dispossession and struggle around access to water and land
• early civic hydrology (the role of the grachte or canals and the Victorian storm water tunnels)
• slavery at the Cape (Old Slave Lodge, the site of the old slave tree in Spin Street, Church Square slave memorialisation)
• early social stratification (Heerengracht, or ‘Gentleman’s Canal’ vs. Eerste Berg Dwars Straat – now St George’s Mall – for the ordinary people)
• emancipation of slaves and the origins of the Cape Minstrel Carnival (steps of the Old Town House in Greenmarket Square)
• the early Cape Town export economy (fruit and vegetables from the Company’s Gardens)
• the early Cape Town local economy (Greenmarket Square, Longmarket and Shortmarket Streets)
• the origins of South Africa’s diamond and gold mining economy (Rhodes House, now Mandela Rhodes House)
• the origins of South Africa’s modern banking system (Cape of Good Hope Bank, Board of Executors Building – now the Taj Palace Hotel)
• early struggles for freedom of religion at the Cape (Dutch Reformed Church)
• the battle to stop the Cape becoming a British penal colony (Adderley Street)
• the origins of local government in South Africa (Old Town House on Greenmarket Square)
• the struggles for a free press (Newspaper House and the former Cape times building – now the Mandela Rhodes Place parking garage – in Berg Street)
• the rise of Afrikaner nationalism (Jan Hofmeyer statue on Church Square)
• the rise of apartheid (SA Parliament, the Cultural History Museum – for whites – vs the Natural History Museum – for blacks, segregated benches in Queen Victoria Street)
• anti-apartheid struggles (St George’s Cathedral, Central Methodist Church, the ‘Purple Rain’ march in Berg Street)
• negotiating the new SA Constitution (the role of Regis House – now Constitution House - in Adderley Street, near Parliament)
• the role of three Nobel Peace Prize winners – Archbishop Tutu, Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk (St George’s Cathedral, SA Parliament, Government Avenue, Tuynhuys)
• the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Regis House)
• the impact of the 2010 World Cup (new Integrated Rapid Transit and non-motorised transport routes)
• the role of contemporary civil society (IDASA building in Spin Street)

Bureau Street, near the Dutch Reformed Church and the Old Slave Lodge

Slave memorialisation on Church Square

Church Square, with the new Iziko Social History Museum in the background

Discussing the importance of pedestrian space in Longmarket Street

Three hundred years of history on Greenmarket Square

Inclusive memorialisation - the 'Purple Rain' public art in Berg Street

Continuing the discussion, now warm and dry, in the Taj Palace lounge, formerly the banking hall of the SA Reserve Bank building

All pictures: Sue Martin. Cape Town Partnership