3 Best Sights in The Northern Cape, South Africa

A well-known Kimberley landmark, the family home of merchant John Orr has a colonial wraparound verandah painted a distinctive green and white. Sadly, its upkeep is lacking, and you can only visit it on a tour (pre-booked through the McGregor Museum), during which you'll hear about the swimming pool (the first in Kimberley) and the red dining room, which took a shell through its ceiling during the Anglo-Boer War siege. 

In the leafy suburb of Belgravia, Rudd House is the rambling home of Cecil John Rhodes's first business partner, the early diamond magnate Charles Dunnell Rudd. The house has been restored in the art-deco style of the 1920s, when the Bungalow, as the house was then known, was in its heyday. Look for the croquet ground made out of kimberlite, and the massive snooker table surrounded by a multitude of animal heads from Rudd's trips north to Matabeleland. Like Dunluce, Rudd House can be seen only on a tour operated by the McGregor Museum (see).

Activist, author, and journalist Sol Plaatje (1876–1932) lived most of his multitalented life in this house. In addition to being the first general secretary of the African National Congress, he was the first black South African to publish a novel in English, an influential early black newspaper editor, and an energetic campaigner for human rights. His house is now a small reference library, publishing house, and museum with displays on his life and extracts from his diary. The reference library contains the works of previously exiled South Africans (in English) and a collection of Tsetswana literature; books are also for sale.