The Golden Triangle: Cape Town’s Three Sites of Memory

Cape Town is a city layered with beauty — mountains, ocean, culture — but also with history that isn’t always comfortable to face. In the heart of the city centre, just a few minutes’ walk apart, stand three landmarks that together tell South Africa’s story of colonialism, apartheid, and liberation.

we'll refer to them here as forming a “golden triangle” — not for wealth or glamour, but for the way they connect three defining chapters of our collective past: the Slave Lodge, the race classification benches on Queen Victoria Street, and St George’s Cathedral.

1️⃣ The Iziko Slave Lodge — Where the Story Begins

The Slave Lodge, on the edge of Church Square, is one of Cape Town’s oldest buildings and perhaps its most haunting. Built in the 1600s by the Dutch East India Company, it housed enslaved people brought from across Africa and Asia: the very workers who built the foundations of the colonial Cape.

This space tells the story of colonialism’s beginnings in South Africa: a time when people were treated as property, their names, languages, and histories erased. Inside the museum today, each exhibition works to restore that lost humanity and to remind visitors that the story of Cape Town cannot be told without the story of the enslaved.

Standing here, you realise that so much of the city’s beauty — its architecture, its gardens, its early wealth — was built through forced labour. The Lodge is meaningful because it asks us to start the story of South Africa not from the colonisers’ perspective, but from those who endured it.

📍 Iziko Slave Lodge, Corner Adderley Street and, Wale St – visit via iziko.org.za

2️⃣ The Race Classification Benches: Apartheid in Plain Sight

A short walk away, on Queen Victoria Street, sit two unassuming stone benches. Each is engraved with a single word: “WHITES ONLY” and “NON-WHITES ONLY.”

These benches form part of a public artwork reminding us how apartheid,a system built on racial classification, was enforced not just through laws but through daily life. Where you could sit, live, work, study, or marry was dictated by the colour of your skin. They’re small and unassuming, but deeply powerful. In a city known for postcard views, these benches are deliberately ordinary — because apartheid was ordinary. It operated through the small rules that divided everyday spaces and stripped away people’s sense of belonging.

The benches force us to pause and imagine how ordinary spaces — parks, beaches, train cars — became symbols of exclusion. They’re not relics of nostalgia, but tools for remembrance. A reminder that segregation wasn’t abstract policy; it was written into the texture of everyday life.

When you visit them after the Slave Lodge, the connection becomes clear: the ideology that justified enslavement centuries earlier evolved into the laws that structured segregation. Both were systems built to separate and control.

📍 Race Classification Benches, 38 Queen Victoria St, Cape Town City Centre

3️⃣ St George’s Cathedral: The People’s Cathedral and the Freedom Fighters

And sandwiched in between the Race Classification Benches and the Slave Lodge you'll find St George’s Cathedral, the oldest cathedral in Southern Africa and one of the most important sites of moral resistance during apartheid.

Under the leadership of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the cathedral became known as the People’s Cathedral — a place where political leaders, activists, and ordinary citizens gathered to pray, march, and speak out. It was from these very steps that Tutu led peaceful protests against injustice, calling for unity and forgiveness instead of vengeance.

The cathedral represents the spiritual and moral awakening of the struggle. It’s where the voices silenced by slavery and apartheid found space to be heard again. Standing inside, surrounded by the glow of stained glass, it’s hard not to feel the weight of what those marches meant, and the courage it took to fight for freedom without violence.

📍 St George’s Cathedral, Wale Street – sgcathedral.co.za

Final Thoughts:

Visiting all three of these locations together is an effective way of understanding South Africa's story. It reminds us that the beautiful city we see today is not without a dark history, the effects of which are still felt by many that live and work here. No visit to Cape Town would be complete without this painful, but essential background.

For more content like this, check out my Beginner’s Guide to Cape Town series on Youtube, and download my FREE digital guide, which dives into other must-visit cultural and historical spots, just like this, in the city centre.

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