Greenmarket Square is a historical square in the centre of old

Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

. The square was built in 1696, when a

burgher Burgher may refer to: * Burgher (social class), a medieval, early modern European title of a citizen of a town, and a social class from which city officials could be drawn ** Burgess (title), a resident of a burgh in northern Britain ** Grand Bu ...

watch house was erected. Over the years, the square has served as a slave market, a vegetable market, a parking lot and more recently, a flea market trading mainly African

souvenir A souvenir (), memento, keepsake, or token of remembrance is an object a person acquires for the memories the owner associates with it. A souvenir can be any object that can be collected or purchased and transported home by the traveler as a m ...

s, crafts and curios. Near the centre of the square is a hand-operated pump used to bring clean water to the surface from an underground river that runs through the city. During the

apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

era, Greenmarket Square was often the focus of political protests, due in part to its proximity to parliament, as well as the ethnicity of its traders and shoppers.

Location

The square is located in the centre of the

city bowl The City Bowl is a part of Cape Town in South Africa. It is a natural amphitheatre-shaped area bordered by Table Bay and defined by the mountains of Signal Hill, Lion's Head, Table Mountain and Devil's Peak. The area includes the central bu ...

area of Cape Town's city centre between St George's Mall to the south east and Long Street to the square's north west. Strand Street is located to the north of the square and Wale Street to the South. The area in front of the front door of the Old Town House on the square is regarded as the historical centre of Cape Town. Shortmarket Street and Longmarket Street border the square on either side with Burg Street running through the middle of the square.

History

Early history

In the years following Cape Town's establishment in 1652 a number of streets came into existence above Strand Street (which followed the natural shoreline) and the Company Gardens which initially functioned as a

market garden A market garden is the relatively small-scale production of fruits, vegetables and flowers as cash crops, frequently sold directly to consumers and restaurants. The diversity of crops grown on a small area of land, typically from under to ...

run by the

Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock ...

to supply ships. The square developed naturally as the venue for the sale of fresh produce from the garden and surrounding farms. The sale of other goods and services including the sale of slaves followed shortly after. A fountain was established as a key point for townspeople to access drinking water. Following its establishment as a market the square became the administrative and social centre of the town with the construction of a burger watch house in 1696 to provide security. By the 1730s rural style thatch-roofed dwellings around the square began to be replaced by flat-roofed single and multiple story houses. In 1761, the watch house was demolished and the Old Town House built in the site. This building functioned as the city hall and Burgher Watch House for a period of time.

Nineteenth and twentieth centuries

Greenmarket Square in Cape Town 1876 - Cape Colony Archives

Nearly all the single-storied buildings round the square had been replaced with taller buildings by 1845. In 1879 the Central Metropolitan Church was constructed on the square. The square lost its prominence following the completion of the

Cape Town city hall Cape Town City Hall is a large Edwardian building in Cape Town city centre which was built in 1905. It is located on the Grand Parade to the west of the Castle and is built from honey-coloured oolitic limestone imported from Bath in England. ...

in 1905 whereupon trading moved to the Grand Parade opposite the city hall. In the 1930s a number of

art deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

style buildings were constructed around the square. In the 1950s the square was turned into a parking lot. The square and surrounding buildings were declared a national monument in 1961. In the late-1980s the parking lot was replaced with a flea market trading African curios and crafts and rented out to private vendors. In September 1989 the square was the centre of the Purple Rain Protest against

. In the mid-1990s until 2007 the square was run by controversial city counsellor

Badih Chaaban Badih Chabaan (c. 1960 - 4 September 2017) was a PR councilor in the Cape Town City Council (Subcouncil 17 (Athlone & District)). He was a member of the Africa Muslim Party (AMP) when he was named councilor in August 2006 but later crossed the fl ...

who held a lease on 83% of the square and owed the city R3.3 million. Chaaban's lease was cancelled in 2007 amid accusations of mismanagement and corruption. South Africa's oldest

tobacconist A tobacconist, also called a tobacco shop, a tobacconist's shop or a smoke shop, is a retailer of tobacco products in various forms and the related accoutrements, such as pipes, lighters, matches, pipe cleaners, and pipe tampers. More specia ...

, Sturks Tobacco (opening on 1 August 1793), was located on the square until the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

and resulting tobacco sales ban resulted in its closure in June 2020.

Current status

The square was

pedestrianised Pedestrian zones (also known as auto-free zones and car-free zones, as pedestrian precincts in British English, and as pedestrian malls in the United States and Australia) are areas of a city or town reserved for pedestrian-only use and in whi ...

in the early-2000s allowing for better market access and greater pedestrian safety. As of 2016 the Central City Improvement District had been appointed to run the square and conduct research into how it and the trading stores could be improved.

References

External links

Cape Town Shopping: Greenmarket Square Cape Town
{{Cape Town, built Squares in South Africa South African heritage sites