The Groote Kerk on Adderley Street is the oldest existing church building in South Africa, with the present church dating from 1841 but incorporating the bell tower of an earlier 1700 building. As the mother church of the Dutch Reformed denomination it has been a centre of Afrikaner religious life for more than three centuries.
The interior is striking: an enormous, single-volume hall, a carved pulpit by Anton Anreith from 1789, and a vast 6,000-pipe organ regarded as one of the finest in the country. Tours run on weekday mornings. The church is right opposite the Slave Lodge, an interesting historical juxtaposition.