Company's Garden

The Company's Garden is the oldest public garden in South Africa, laid out in 1652 by the Dutch East India Company to grow fresh vegetables for ships rounding the Cape. Today it runs through the heart of Cape Town's city centre along Queen Victoria Street, forming a green spine of lawns, oak-lined avenues and flower beds. Visitors walk through shaded pathways where fat grey squirrels and birds forage, past a rose garden, a pond, a small aviary and a herb garden, with benches for picnics and for office workers on lunch breaks. The garden is bordered by important institutions, including the Iziko South African Museum and its planetarium, the South African National Gallery, the Slave Lodge, the Houses of Parliament and the Great Synagogue, which makes it a natural base for a walking day through the historic centre. Statues and memorials dot the avenues, including a statue of Cecil Rhodes and a sundial. A restaurant and tea room operate in the garden. Table Mountain rises dramatically behind the gardens, and the view down the main avenue to the mountain is a favourite photograph, especially in morning light. A typical visit lasts 45 minutes to one and a half hours, longer with a museum stop. Weekday mornings are quiet and peaceful, while weekends and lunchtimes see more local visitors and pop-up events. The garden is open from early morning until evening, but visitors should keep to the central paths at dusk and stay alert for pickpockets and opportunistic theft, as in any city park. Free to enter, it is also a useful rest stop in the heat of summer, and picnickers should avoid feeding the squirrels.