Company's Garden

The name “Company's Garden” appeared in the mid-seventeenth century. Employees of the Dutch East India Company grew vegetables and medicinal plants for the garrison and for ships traveling between Europe and Asia. The first beds lay closer to the sea, but the unfamiliar change of seasons and strong winds destroyed the crops. The vegetable garden was moved higher up, to more fertile and sheltered land. Today’s park occupies the surviving part of this operation.

Over time, produce for the port began to arrive from surrounding farms, and the garden became the route of the city’s main promenade. The oak avenue was open to residents for about a century and a half. At the time, Cape Town had no other publicly accessible shaded promenade.

In December seventeen ninety-nine, George Yonge, the new British governor, arrived in the city. He wanted to put the neglected garden in order and separate off the area near the governor’s house. Yonge stationed guards at the gates and forbade townspeople to enter until the repairs were finished.

People of every social class were outraged, especially women. Colonial secretary Andrew Barnard understood that the governor had closed a familiar city passage and prepared an order: the side paths could be repaired, but the central avenue had to remain open. He hurried to Yonge with the document already written.

The governor held up the order, then partly gave way. The avenue was opened, but a register appeared at the guardhouse. Everyone entering had to write down their name—even if they crossed the garden several times a day. For residents accustomed to walking freely here, this registration turned a stroll into a visit to someone else’s territory.

Yonge was recalled in eighteen oh one after numerous complaints and an investigation into other violations by his administration. Closing the garden was one of the accusations, but not in itself the reason for his dismissal. After he left, free passage was restored.

A section of the high wall that Yonge intended to use to enclose the garden survives on Parliament Street. And the central avenue that Andrew Barnard demanded be kept open during the repairs still leads through the park today—without a guard or a name book.