The former residence of the President of the Republic of the Orange Free State from 1886 until 1899 when the city fell to the British Empire during the Second Anglo-Boer War.

Major Henry Douglas Warden (then the British resident for the area north of the Orange River) purchased it from the Brits family in 1846.

The thatched-house built by the Brits family was demolished and the house he (Warden) erected began as a small farm building which was made out of sun-dried bricks.

[4] In the early 1880s the Volksraad decided that the cost of maintenance was unfeasible and that the building was no longer suitable as the official residence of the head of state of an independent country.

[9] After the British captured Bloemfontein on 13 March 1900, the building became known as the Government House and was occupied by Lord Roberts and his officers; and later by Sir Hamilton J Goold-Adams (1901-1910) who was the Lieutenant-Governor of the Orange River Colony.

[10] During the time of Goold-Adams, the architect Sir Herbert Baker made some additions to the Presidency and also added the stables to the back of the house.