Safe Arbor - A Claremont Heritage Walking Tour

Is Claremont the most lush of all Cape Town’s neighbourhoods?

Perhaps, but I can tell you it’s definitely one of the most fascinating by far.

From the Newlands Brewery to the Arderne Gardens, this little arboreal village should be a fabled fragment of South African Victoriana.

Long before our current Rainbow Nation, communities of all colours here shared fields, faiths and mixed fortunes across centuries. Long before Cavendish Mall, Main Road was an Oxford Street in miniature spearheading the nation’s revolution in retail.

And long before open evenings at the Observatory, star-gazers from all over the Empire came as pilgrims to the site of Sir John Herschel’s homemade telescope where the kids of Grove Primary now muddle into lessons.

You may have spotted or heard of all these features in passing, but I doubt anyone’s ever put them all together in one mellifluous story. If you join our heritage walk from The Good Neighbour Cafe this Sunday at 14h00, you’ll be knocked sideways by everything you’ve ever missed on your potterings around the Southern Suburbs. And even if you’ve lived in Claremont for most of your days, I think I can shock you with a few facts and hidden details that’ll serve to reveal your place in history.

Taking Norah Henshilwood’s wonderful ‘A Cape Childhood’ as our map and guide, we’ll transform the suburb into a leafy playground for the afternoon, compacting all its generations into a palimpsest of collective memory before gawping once more at all of Ralph Henry’s Champion Trees on show and all the weddings we might end up crashing…

RSVP via Quicket or directly via 076 033 8164 and/or [email protected] to secure your spots!

And tell your friends, tell your fam! Let’s make a unique and glorious day of it x

Yours,

Cameron of CTHT

“I joined a heritage tour of Claremont by Cameron. I learnt so much about the history of the area. It was so well conveyed and brought to life by Cameron. You can almost feel what life was like back then. Very enriching!”

• Marina V.

P.S. If you've read this far I'm guessing you'll want even more of the specs, so here goes:

- We'll be starting at The Good Neighbour Cafe on Hemlock Street at 14h00 on Sunday and finishing about 2 km away in the middle of the Arderne Gardens so happily park on either side and organise an Uber carpool if needs be. I’ll be providing an Uber XL back to the starting point anyway.

- We've just put up our ticket prices for the first time in two-and-a-half years, from R120pp to R150pp. Obviously this is just to keep with inflation and to allow the tours to remain a sustainable enterprise for the foreseeable future, but this is still about R50 less per person than our nearest competition. In other words, we are deliberately undercharging the tours so as to keep them affordable for locals and visitors alike and to encourage guests to come back weekend after weekend.

- Book via Quicket, WhatsApp us on 076 033 8164, E-mail us on [email protected] or Message us via the buttons on our home page to secure your place.

- We have also just introduced a broad scheme of discounts you can apply for on each tour, so please do consult the list below before contacting us!

- And we've decided to partner with a different local NGO or charity for each and every one of our tour routes so that R10 of every ticket purchased goes directly to a good, sustainable, local cause. For the Claremont tour, we've chosen to fund-raise for the Oasis Association and you can inspect their brilliance here:

https://www.oasis.org.za/our-shops/

- This is a consistently well-reviewed heritage-focused walking tour; which is to say that all you'll need to enjoy yourself is curiosity about Cape Town's past (and History in general) and enough stamina to walk just less than 3km in one afternoon (with stops and snacks).

- If you're rejoining us, please please please please please please consider dropping us a short (or extensive) review on our Facebook Reviews or Google Reviews section as it will help spread our gospel of curiosity and playful appreciation across the internet and across the spectrum of all potential visitors to the Cape. It helps us more than you can believe!

- You can also add an optional R10 donation on your ticket which will go directly to the NGO Streetscapes as part of our mission to spread love, enthusiasm, mutual support and respect for all of Cape Town's people and histories. Just think how many people we could help and the difference we could make with a few hundred tours!

- Feel absolutely free to spread the word, invite friends who've been looking for this kind of experience and badger us with every imaginable heritage query. We live for it!

Can't wait to meet ya, really! ??

THE CTHT DISCOUNT LIST:

1. Guests over 65 and under 18 can claim a 33% discount on each ticket, at R100pp pre-booked.

2. If you buy tickets for both the Saturday and Sunday tours on one weekend, you can claim R50 off each ticket, at R200pp pre-booked.

3. If you buy a Cape Town Heritage Tours Tote-Bag or any of our books on sale at our Half-Booked Online Shop, you can claim a free tour voucher for each piece of merchandise.

4. You can buy individual advance vouchers for our public tours at R150 each and then message in the week before a scheduled tour. But you can also buy value-packs of five for the price of 4 (R600), 10 for the price of 7 (R1050) or all 18 for the price of 10 (R1500).

5. If you bring 2 or more friends on a weekend tour you can claim R30 back on each of your tickets, at R120pp pre-booked.

6. If you share the posts promoting individual tours you can claim R30 back as well, at R120pp.

7. If you review the tours on Google Reviews, Facebook or TripAdvisor (at any rating) you can claim 50% off your next ticket, at R75pp pre-booked.

8. Likewise if you recommend the tours to a friend who then attends a weekend tour, you can claim 50% off your next ticket, at R75pp pre-booked.

See ya next weekend!