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History: The Rondebosch Common is situated almost opposite the Rustenburg estate and fully two kilometres east of the Liesbeek River. In 1805, during the preparations for defending the Cape against a British attack, General Janssens’s Batavian force was camped on a large area which included what is now the Rondebosch Common. Dysentery broke out amongst the troops and General Janssen’s seventeen-year-old son, a recruit, was one of those who succumbed to the epidemic. The force was then moved to higher terrain at Wynberg. After the occupation of the Cape the land at Rondebosch continued to be used as a camping place for British troops for a number of years, up to the time of Lord Charles Somerset. This is why the street that borders on the Western side of the present Common was called Camp Ground Road.
At the request of Bishop Gray, the first Anglican Bishop in South Africa, Governor Cathcart in 1855 granted the right to graze cattle on the Common to the Rector of St. Paul’s Church, Rondebosch, with the proviso that the public was always to enjoy access to the area. At the same time two adjoining pieces of land on the Common were given to the Wesleyan and Mohammedan communities for use as graveyards. Pine trees were planted round them, and this is the origin of the cluster of pine trees we see on the Common today.
The Common is now much smaller than it was originally, but by modern standards it is still an exceptionally fine piece of open land within a municipality. With its wealth of spring flowers, it is indeed fortunate that it survived and could be preserved for future generations.
Proclaimed 1961"
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