Constitution Hill

Free-admission days will be offered to commemorate special national holidays.

Our highlights tour is an hour long and alternates each hour, visiting the Women`s Jail, Number Four and the Constitutional Court one hour, and the Old Fort, Number Four and the Constitutional Court the next.

This tour is particularly useful for organised tours, visitors arriving on the City Sightseeing red bus and those with limited time. After the tour, you are welcome to explore the rest of the precinct on your own.

Experience the whole of Constitution Hill – the Old Fort, the Women`s Jail, Number Four and the Constitutional Court – on our full, two-hour tour.

This holistic tour comes to the heart of what Constitution Hill is all about, exploring the precinct’s complex history, its mutations through time, the humiliations and injustices to which its inmates were subjected, and offering an explanation as to why the court’s presence in this place is so meaningful.

The story of the site comes alive through our self-guided tours where one can explore the entire site at their own leisure. For the best experience, one can make use of the of the Constitution Hill App (please inquire at the ticket office) to navigate their way around. On the self-guided tour, ones explores the Women’s Gaol, the Old Fort, No 4 Prison and the Constitutional Court. The time constraints do not apply here as guests adhere to their own time schedules and tours are available from 09h00 – 15h00.

The Constitutional Court, the highest court in the land, is a building rich in symbolism. It was built in line with the theme of lekgotla, which refers to the traditional African custom of conducting justice beneath the branches of a tree. The tour begins at the Awaiting Trial Block, moves into the court foyer and finally into the court chamber.
The tour is conducted by an expert, who will discuss South Africa’s Constitutional dispensation and the building`s architecture and artworks. For groups of 10+ only.

90 minutes long

This experiential Time Travel tour is inspired by the events around the arrest of the youth on 16 June 1976, a time of heightened political tension across South Africa and one borne out in the country’s prisons, particularly Constitution Hill.

It tour begins with prisoner uniforms and officially registering as prisoners. Men and women are separated and marched through the precinct by their warden-come-guides, who ensure they undertake tasks specific to male and female prisoners. At the end of the tour, the two groups will reconvene for a tour of the Constitutional Court.