[citation needed] Until the arrival of Dutch colonists in 1652, the uncultivated veld of the Cape Peninsula was used by the nomadic Khoikhoi as grazing for their cattle.

The most southerly of those original farms, named Louwvliet and Questenburg, are today covered by the suburbs of Claremont and Newlands.

British settlers and officials bought the farms, renamed some of them, and turned them into country residences.

The distinguished British astronomer Sir John Herschel put the area on the map by living at Feldhausen (formerly Veldhuyzen) from 1834 to 1838.

Public transport consisted of horse-drawn omnibuses which plied along the Main Road from 1837 until the railway was opened in 1864.

[4] The gardens, by then regionally renowned, were bought by the municipal government and turned into a public park in 1928.

[5] In 1863, the Anglo-Italian immigrant and businessman John Molteno, who was later to become the Cape Colony's first prime minister, bought 140 acres of land centred on the Claremont House estate.

The land along Lansdowne Road east of the railway line was subdivided and developed from 1882, creating a large residential area which is now known as "Harfield Village".

The government enforced its apartheid system on Claremont in the 1960s, forcing the Coloured residents to leave.