In the article below, Norah Henshilwood traces the early history of Claremont and reveals some of her memories of the suburb. The piece first appeared in the 1976 edition of Restorica, the old journal of the Simon van der Stel Foundation, today the Heritage Association of South Africa. Thank you to the University of Pretoria (copyright holders) for giving us permission to publish.
Of all the suburbs of Cape Town, Claremont is the one that through business expansion and population growth has changed more than any other. Originally its area on the mountainside was part of a farm that in 1660 had been granted on the banks of the Vers River (later named the Liesbeek) to one of Van Riebeeck's "free burghers". When M. Thibault, the Government architect, made an official survey in 1812, this farm, called Veldhuysen, or Veldhuyse, extended over more than ninety-nine morgen. A German owner later changed the name to Feldhausen. Sir John Herschel, the famous astronomer lived here for four years while he mapped the stars of the Southern Hemisphere and from here he viewed Halley's Comet through his telescope, the site of which is marked by an Obelisk, still to be seen adjoining the grounds of the Grove Primary School. Elliott's photograph of the old Feldhausen homestead led Fransen to describe it as "one of the most beautiful homesteads of the Peninsula".
By the beginning of this century the homestead had become a boarding house and later a private hotel with the name altered to "Herschel Hotel"...
