Cape Town - Company's Garden

On a site now occupied by the 5.5 ha/13.5ac Botanical Gardens the first white settlers laid out vegetable and fruit gardens in 1652. With their exotic trees and flowers, rose garden, aviaries and ponds, the gardens are an oasis of peace in the heart of the city. Under shady trees is a café where visitors may like to rest and relax after their sightseeing.

Other attractions are the scented garden for blind people, a sundial c 1782 and a reproduction of a slave bell c 1855. There are monuments to Sir George Gray, Governor of the Cape Colony from 1845 to 1862, and Cecil Rhodes. The figure of Rhodes shows him pointing northward - reflecting his ambition to extend British influence from the Cape to Cairo. The monument was designed by Sir Herbert Baker, a British architect who came to South Africa in 1892 and received many commissions from Rhodes.