University of Cape Town campus tour: Upper Campus and Devil's Peak

The University of Cape Town, universally called UCT, is the oldest university in South Africa. It began in 1829 as the South African College, a school for boys in the centre of Cape Town, grew into a university college, and was formally established as a university in 1918. A decade later it moved out to the slopes of Devil's Peak, the craggy mountain next to Table Mountain, and few universities anywhere have a more dramatic setting. This guide explains how its campuses fit together and what student life around them is like.

How the campuses are arranged

The main campus is in Rondebosch, in Cape Town's Southern Suburbs, about eight kilometres from the city centre. It steps down the mountainside in three parts:

Upper Campus: the historic core, high on the slope. Science, engineering, commerce and most of the humanities.
Middle Campus: just below a motorway that cuts across the hillside. Law, economics and administration.
Lower Campus: along Main Road in Rondebosch. Residences, the music school, sports facilities and the Baxter Theatre.

Three smaller campuses lie elsewhere in the city: health sciences in Observatory, fine art and drama at Hiddingh in the city centre, and the business school at the Waterfront.

Upper Campus and Sarah Baartman Hall

The land for the Upper Campus was part of the Groote Schuur estate, left to the nation by Cecil Rhodes. The architect J. M. Solomon planned it in the years after 1918 as a formal, symmetrical composition, and the university moved in at the end of the 1920s.

At its centre, a wide flight of steps climbs to a hall with a classical portico, set against the rock face of Devil's Peak. It was long known as Jameson Hall, and in 2018 it was renamed Sarah Baartman Hall, in memory of a Khoikhoi woman who was taken to Europe and exhibited there in the early 19th century. The steps and plaza below are the campus's main meeting place. A statue of Rhodes stood below the steps until 2015, when it was removed after student protests.

Long, ivy-covered buildings stretch out along the terraces on both sides, and two of the oldest residences flank the plaza. The view outwards is as striking as the view up: over the rugby fields and the suburbs to the Cape Flats and the Hottentots Holland mountains.

The Jagger Library and the 2021 fire

Next to the hall is the Jagger Library, which housed the university's special collections, including a major African studies collection. In April 2021, a wildfire that started on the mountain above swept down onto the Upper Campus. The library's reading room was gutted, and part of its collection was lost, though much was saved from the basement stores. The university has been working on plans to rebuild.

Middle and Lower Campus

A pedestrian route passes under the motorway to Middle Campus, home to the law faculty and the School of Economics.

Lower Campus runs along Main Road. It has many of the residences, the South African College of Music and the Baxter Theatre Centre, one of Cape Town's main venues for drama, music and comedy since the 1970s.

The medical school at Groote Schuur

The Faculty of Health Sciences is in Observatory, about two kilometres north, beside Groote Schuur Hospital. It was here, in December 1967, that the surgeon Christiaan Barnard, a UCT graduate, led the team that carried out the first human-to-human heart transplant. The original operating theatres are now a small museum.

Hiddingh and the Waterfront

The Hiddingh Campus, in the Gardens district near the centre of town, is where the South African College stood in the 19th century. It now houses the Michaelis School of Fine Art and the drama department. The Graduate School of Business occupies a converted Victorian prison beside the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront.

Student life

UCT has a large residence system. Many first-year students live in catered residences on or near the Rondebosch campuses, and senior students often move into self-catering residences or shared houses in Rondebosch, Mowbray and Observatory. The university's own shuttle buses, known as the Jammie Shuttle, connect the campuses and residences.

Sport is a big part of campus life. The rugby club, the Ikey Tigers, plays on the field below the Upper Campus known as the Green Mile, and its meetings with Stellenbosch University are the highlight of the season. Hiking is the other obvious pastime: paths lead from the top of the campus to Rhodes Memorial, a granite monument with a wide view over the city, and on up Devil's Peak and Table Mountain.

Close by are Newlands, with its forest and its sports grounds, and Kirstenbosch, one of the world's great botanical gardens. The beaches of the Atlantic coast and False Bay are within half an hour's drive.

Seeing the campus for yourself

The Upper Campus is the part to see, and its plaza and avenues can generally be walked freely during the day. Buildings and residences are for students and staff. UCT holds events for prospective students; what is offered, and whether tours are available, changes from year to year, so check the university's official website before making plans.

Getting there and around

By car or taxi: most visitors arrive by car, taxi or ride-hailing. The campus is ten to fifteen minutes from the city centre outside peak hours, and about twenty minutes from Cape Town International Airport.
By train: the Southern Line has stations at Rondebosch, Rosebank and Mowbray, below the Lower Campus; check locally how the service is currently running.
On campus: the walk from Lower to Upper Campus is steep and takes twenty minutes or more.
Safety: take the usual big-city precautions, and ask your accommodation for advice about getting around after dark and about hiking on the mountain.

Where families usually base themselves

Rondebosch, Newlands and Claremont: leafy suburbs with guesthouses and small hotels, closest to the campus.
The City Bowl and Gardens: central, with Table Mountain behind and plenty of restaurants.
The Waterfront and the Atlantic seaboard: the main hotel districts, best for combining the visit with a holiday.

Tips for the day

Start at the plaza on Upper Campus, walk the length of the main avenue, then go up to Rhodes Memorial for the view.
Cape Town's summer, from about November to March, is dry and often windy; winter is cool and wet. The academic year runs from February to November.
If Rhodes's name is familiar, it is from the scholarship that sends graduates to Oxford.

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Cover photo: Vysotsky, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons