St George's Cathedral

Before you rises Cape Town's Anglican cathedral. Its architecture is calm, almost English. Its recent history is anything but: one of the bravest chapters in the struggle against apartheid was written here.

1A cathedral long in the making

An earlier church in the Greek style, opened in 1834, once stood on this site. The present building was designed by Herbert Baker, the architect of the British Empire in southern Africa, and its foundation stone was laid in 1901 by the future King George V. Work went slowly and the transept was not finished until 1936.

2The people's cathedral

In 1986 Desmond Tutu became the first black Archbishop of Cape Town. From then on these steps were a starting point for protests and a refuge for activists of every background. On 13 September 1989, a week after a whites-only election during which police killed more than twenty people in the townships on the city's edge, some 30,000 people set off from here and marched down Adderley Street to the Grand Parade.

“We are the rainbow people,” Tutu told the crowd. The phrase would go on to name the new South Africa.

The march was illegal under the State of Emergency, but De Klerk's government chose not to break it up. Many historians see it as the first step towards the transition. Tutu died in December 2021 and his remains lie inside the cathedral, before the high altar.

3What to look for

• The steps, the stage for so many protests.
• The plaque for the 1989 peace march, outside.
• The modern bell tower, with ten bells; the largest is called ‘Good Hope’.