Statue of Cecil Rhodes, Bronze memorial statue in Company's Garden, Cape Town, South Africa

The Cecil John Rhodes Statue in Company's Garden, Cape Town, is a bronze figure of Rhodes in a three-piece suit, his left hand raised and pointing north. It stands on a stepped round bronze plinth atop a base of pale tan stone blocks inscribed "CECIL JOHN RHODES", "1853-1902", "YOUR HINTERLAND", "IS THERE". The statue was erected in 1908.

The statue was erected in 1908 in Company's Garden, not at the top of Adderley Street as first planned. Sir Herbert Baker objected to that site because the statue's scale might dwarf the cathedral nearby, and no consensus was reached with Francis Masey. The roughly hewn sandstone design has been read as an expression of imperialist interest in Southern Africa and of Rhodes's mining concerns.

The statue's raised left hand points north, and writers contrast this with the Jan van Riebeeck statue nearby, which faces south; the two gestures are read as competing claims on the Cape. The figure stands on a secondary axis of the Iziko South African Museum, so its position in the garden is itself part of how the monument is understood.

You can reach the statue through several entrances to the garden, with the main gate on Queen Victoria Street. The location is walkable, and the park itself has paths that are straightforward to navigate.

The statue was first planned as a landmark for the top of Adderley Street, but Sir Herbert Baker objected, fearing its scale would dwarf the cathedral nearby. With no agreement between Baker and Francis Masey on placement, it went to Company's Garden instead, on a secondary axis of the Iziko South African Museum.