Greenmarket Square and the Old Town House

For more than three centuries this square has been the heart of old Cape Town. It began as an informal market: farmers and the Company's garden sold their vegetables here, hence the name. Enslaved people were sold here too.

1The burghers' town hall

The cream-and-white building with the turret is the Old Town House. It was built in the mid-18th century, in 1755 according to Iziko, as the headquarters of the Burgher Watch, the citizens' guard, and served as the town hall until the City Hall opened in 1905. It is one of the finest surviving examples of Cape Baroque. Today it houses the Michaelis Collection of 17th-century Dutch and Flemish painting, donated by the magnate Max Michaelis.

In the 20th century the square led very different lives: market, car park in the 1950s and, from the late 1980s, the craft market you see today.

2‘The purple shall govern’

On 2 September 1989, four days before a whites-only election, hundreds of anti-apartheid demonstrators tried to march on Parliament along Burg Street. The police met them with a water cannon loaded with purple dye, so that those arrested could be identified later. A young man climbed onto the vehicle and turned the jet on the police; the dye splattered the Old Town House and the buildings around the square.

The next day a slogan appeared on the walls: “The purple shall govern”, a play on the Freedom Charter of 1955.

3What to look for

• The turret and coat of arms of the Old Town House.
• The hand-operated water pump, near the centre of the square.
• The Art Deco buildings from the 1930s that surround it.