Gardens, Cape Town

In the early years, the Cape was used as an anchorage for Portuguese, Dutch and British ships. No permanent settlement existed until the Dutch East India Company issued a mandate to Jan van Riebeeck, a ship's surgeon, to establish a settlement which could provide passing ships with fruit, vegetables and fresh meat (traded from the locals).

In 1652 the first garden was laid out by Hendrik Boom, the Company's master gardener, on a site close to the Fresh River (near to the Grand Parade). Later that year, the garden crossed the Fresh River (where Adderley Street is today), and included a medicine garden. Within a few years it was 18 hectares in size.

As more produce became available from the Company's gardens at Newlands and from the Free Burghers who had settled along the Liesbeeck River, the town garden was slowly converted into a botanical and ornamental garden, although the growing of vegetables did continue for a number of years.

The famous kilometre-long Government Avenue, which runs from the top of Adderley Street, also known as 'The Gardens', was originally planted with lemon trees and in 1700 with orange trees. During the time of Simon van der Stel, it was lined with oak trees, which remain today.

The suburb is home to Southern Africa's oldest Jewish congregation. The first Jewish services in the country were held on the day preceding Yom Kippur in 1841, known as Erev Yom Kippur at Benjamin Norden's home, Helmsley Place. The Belmond Mount Nelson Hotel purchased Norden's former home in 1996 and it is now guest accommodation for the hotel.[5][6] In the early twentieth century, a Jewish primary school was established on Hope Street, United Hebrew Schools'. A purpose-built school was built at the same site in 1937, replacing the large house that had previously housed the school.[7] The school later became known as Herzlia School and relocated to its current campus in Vredehoek in the 1950s, where a high school was also established.[8]

During apartheid, Vredehoek was designated as a “whites-only” area as part of the Group Areas Act. The Gardens Centre Tower was built in the 1970s in response to a "white housing crisis" in racially segregated Cape Town. In the 1970s the National Party initiated several planning interventions, including the suspension of the city's zoning rules with regards to building height for developers willing to build housing in white Group Areas.[9]

• Belmond Mount Nelson Hotel, one of the oldest and most historic hotels in all of Africa
• Leeuwenhof, the official residence of the Premier of the Western Cape
• Labia Theatre, one of the oldest independent movie theatres in the city

Gardens Shul

• Gardens Shul, an Orthodox Jewish synagogue located in the historic Company Gardens
• St. Barnabas Church, Anglican church on Kloof Nek Road & Kamp Street
• Cape Peninsula Reformed Church, English-speaking congregation of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa (NGK) on Kloof Street
• Gereformeerde Kerk Kaapstad, Reformed church on Hof St
• The Union Chapel, Presbyterian church on corner of Kloof Street & Eaton Road
• Father's House Church, Assemblies of God church on Vrede Street
• Jubilee Community Church, located on Kloof Street
• New Life City Church Cape Town, Evangelical church on Kloof Street

The suburb is served by the MyCiTi bus rapid transit system. The 101 route takes passengers to Vredehoek and the Cape Town Civic Centre in central Cape Town. The 113 route takes passengers to Adderley Street and the V&A Waterfront. The 107 route goes to Camps Bay.[15]

• Age of Iron, a 1990 novel by J.M. Coetzee takes places in and around the suburb. The elderly white protagonist, Mrs. Curren lives in a home situated in the area of Breda Street, Schoonder Street and Vrede Street.[16]