Donkin Reserve

The Donkin Reserve sits on a hill above the harbour with a lighthouse, a stone pyramid, and a sweeping view over the rooftops to Algoa Bay. It is the symbolic heart of old Port Elizabeth — the point from which the city grew after the 1820 British Settlers arrived, and the place where the city's dual identity, colonial and post-colonial, stands most visibly side by side.

The pyramid is the centrepiece: an unusual monument for an unusual story. Around it, the reserve is a pleasant open green with benches and flagpoles and a whitewashed lighthouse that still functions. Donkin Street below, lined with Victorian terraced houses, is the best-preserved example of the colonial streetscape. The reserve itself is free to enter and open at all hours, and it's the starting point of the Route 67 art trail that leads down through the city to the harbour.

things to do sight
A story
Sir Rufane Donkin was acting governor of the Cape Colony when he named the new settlement after his wife Elizabeth, who had died of fever in India two years earlier. The stone pyramid he built in her memory in 1820 carries an inscription describing her as "one of the most perfect of human beings" — a private grief set into public stone on a windswept hill above the harbour. When the city changed its name to Gqeberha in 2021, the pyramid remained, and so did Elizabeth's name on the street alongside it.