The Did-You-Know's of Cape Town Heritage

Cape Town is not just a destination for visitors—it’s a treasure trove of history and heritage that we, as locals, can take pride in. From the forgotten subterranean rivers of the City Bowl to the iconic landmarks with tales that span centuries, there’s always something new to discover about our home.

We’re excited to share some fascinating and lesser-known stories about our beautiful city. Let’s celebrate the rich tapestry and heritage of Cape Town this Heritage Month and inspire others to see our city through new eyes.

We’re diving into 10 Hidden Heritage Gems, offering you the perfect conversation starters to share with your friends, both here and overseas.

Written by guest contributor: Cameron Peters from Cape Town Heritage Tours.

1. Did you know that the Cape Town City Bowl is built on a forgotten subterranean river? The oldest name for the valley below Table Mountain is ‘Camissa’ (‘the place of fresh water’) where Khoi tribes once brought their cattle herds to drink from the groundwater springs in winter. The Dutch colonists gradually canalised these streams in the late 1600’s and then the British covered them over and built the modern sewers under the Company Gardens and surrounds when they took over in the 1810’s. Today you can trace the remains of this underworld by joining Cape Town Tunnel Tours for one of their expeditions.

2. Did you know that while Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled to the island of St Helena, he particularly loved Vin de Constance, the sweet wine of Constantia, which he supposedly even asked for on his deathbed in 1821, thus making it the first internationally renowned South African vintage? You can hear more tales of SA wine history on a cellar tour of Groot Constantia or The Constantia Wine Walk.

3. Did you know there was once a small village on top of Table Mountain? While the unbelievably massive Victorian reservoirs were being built on the back table in the 1890’s, a light cable-car system was built on Kasteelspoort above Camps Bay to deliver materials and munitions to the workers who lived in a cluster of small cabins complete with their own post office, bank and general store. You can discover the remains of this ‘ghost town’ at the Waterworks Museum just above the Woodhead Reservoir.

4. Did you know that the majestic South African Astronomical Observatory, which lends the bohemian suburb of Obs its name, can boast of being the birthplace of stellar photography? David Gill, the royal astronomer at the Cape of Good Hope in the 1880’s, was the first person to propose an international conference (which eventually took place in Paris in 1887) to build a collaborative map of the sky, or ‘Carte du Ciel’, by overlaying thousands of photographs from 22 observatories around the globe. You can learn more about the vaunted history of South African astronomy at the Astronomical Museum’s open nights…

5. Did you know that the Gatsby sandwich was indeed named after F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby? The story goes that in 1976 a corner-shop-owner in Athlone concocted the first one ever as a reward for the labourers who helped renovate his store. One of the workers loved it so much that he declared it a ‘Gatsby Smash’, meaning a blockbuster to match the success of the movie version of The Great Gatsby (starring Robert Redford and Mia Farrow) that had played for months at the local bughouse two years earlier. 48 years later we can say his judgement was spot-on. You can try a Gatsby at the iconic Wembley Roadhouse, Miriam’s Kitchen in the CBD, or Steelies at Root44.

6. Did you know that one of the first people to make Muizenberg Beach into a global surfing Mecca was Agatha Christie, the mystery writer? She visited ‘the Brighton of the Cape’ with her husband in 1922 and stumbled upon a lifelong passion, in the process possibly becoming the first European woman to be photographed standing on a surfboard. Today her love for the beach is commemorated by a plaque on the boardwalk and her plays are regularly performed at the local Masque Theatre. You can dive into Cape Town’s surfing culture and history at the Corner Surf Shop or Lifestyle Surf Shops right next door, or catch a show at The Commons one floor above.

7. Did you know that the Taal Monument is the only national monument in the world dedicated to a language? It was opened on the 10th of October 1975, the exact 100th anniversary of the founding of the Genootskap van Regte Afrikaners – the first cultural organisation formed to promote the unique history and character of Afrikaans as a South African dialect of Dutch (with a hundred other languages thrown in for good measure). You can find out more about said uniqueness at the Paarl Museum.

8. Did you know that ‘The Flying Dutchman’ was an actual Dutch man-of-war that supposedly wrecked off the Cape of Good Hope? The infamous ghost ship best known for its role as Davey Jones’s menacing vessel in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, was an actual Dutch man-of-war that supposedly wrecked off the Cape of Good Hope and has been spotted dozens of times in the centuries since, including by a future King of the UK. You can learn its story (and many others) at meetings of the Ship Society or on a Cape Town Heritage Tour in Sea Point or Simon’s Town.

9. Did you know that the iconic Huguenot Memorial Museum in Franschhoek used to be on Kloof Street? Today’s building was once a Dutch colonial homestead named ‘Saasveld House’, the estate of the influential van Rheede van Oudtshoorn family, on the site of the Monte Rosa retirement home, before it was taken apart brick-by-brick and painstakingly reassembled on the other side of the Winelands in 1967. Visit the Franschhoek Village Market on Saturdays for a taste of French joie de vivre.

10. Did you know that a good third of the Cape Town CBD (the Foreshore) is built on reclaimed land? Between 1936 and 1950, the original Cape Town shoreline (including a huge pier and Woodstock Beach) was utterly destroyed and buried under a few million tons of rubble to make a ‘monumental gateway to Africa’ that would modernise the city and revitalise its status as a crucial international port-of-call. You can try to imagine the original shoreline by plotting its route with the help of the VoiceMap app.