Bishopscourt is a small, wealthy, residential suburb in the Southern Suburbs of

Cape Town Cape Town is the legislature, legislative capital city, capital of South Africa. It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. Cape Town is the country's List of municipalities in South Africa, second-largest ...

in the

Western Cape The Western Cape ( ; , ) is a provinces of South Africa, province of South Africa, situated on the south-western coast of the country. It is the List of South African provinces by area, fourth largest of the nine provinces with an area of , an ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

. It is part of the Cape Town Metropolitan Municipality, created in 2000, which includes the greater Cape Town area. It has approximately 350 houses most of which are on more than of land. The suburb includes the official residence of the Archbishop of Cape Town, which is known as Bishopscourt, whence comes the name of the suburb. It is also the location of a large number of foreign consulates and embassies. Along with the neighbouring suburbs of Newlands and Claremont, Bishopscourt is located in an area at the foot of Table Mountain that attractions considerably more rainfall than the rest of the Cape Peninsula. In 2015, it was ranked the sixth richest suburb in

with an average property value of R11 million.

History

Following the establishment of the

Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( ; VOC ), commonly known as the Dutch East India Company, was a chartered company, chartered trading company and one of the first joint-stock companies in the world. Established on 20 March 1602 by the States Ge ...

in 1652, the land that would later become Bishopscourt was originally the site of a farm called Boscheuvel ("Bush Hill"), managed by

Jan van Riebeeck Johan Anthoniszoon "Jan" van Riebeeck (21 April 1619 – 18 January 1677) was a Dutch navigator, ambassador and colonial administrator of the Dutch East India Company. Life Early life Jan van Riebeeck was born in Culemborg on 21 April ...

, the first colonial governor of the Cape. The farm was known for cultivating a range of imported grapevines, fruit trees, and nut trees.

Forced removals

Between 1959 and 1970, 132 families were forcibly removed from the area under the terms of the

Group Areas Act Group Areas Act was the title of three acts of the Parliament of South Africa enacted under the apartheid government of South Africa. The acts assigned racial groups to different residential and business sections in urban areas in a syste ...

, the

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

legislation which declared the area to be for white residents only. Following the end of apartheid, a land claim was instituted in 1995, and claimants were granted erven in 2006. Construction of homes for the 86 families that opted for the return of rights to their land began in 2025.

Nearby places of interest

* Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden

References

Suburbs of Cape Town {{WesternCape-geo-stub