West of Huguenot Road, Berg Street runs quietly away from the village's main axis, lined on both sides with low cottages that date from between 1880 and 1910. They are not grand buildings. They were not built for grandeur. They were built for people who needed somewhere to live, and they have been doing that job for well over a century.

The Oldest on the Southern Side

The cottages on the southern side of the street are the oldest, and their survival is worth noting. Buildings of this scale and modest character are frequently lost to development - not because they are unloved, but because they are small enough to overlook. That a stretch of them remains on Berg Street is due in large part to the care of successive owners and the advocacy of those who understood what would be lost if they went.

A Street of Mixed Community

Before the implementation of apartheid's Group Areas Act reshaped Franschhoek's residential geography, a number of black families lived in this part of the village. Berg Street is a quiet but significant reminder that the community that built and sustained early Franschhoek was more mixed  in background, language and race,  than the apartheid-era map of the village would suggest.

Today

The cottages of Berg Street are not on most tourist itineraries. But they are among the most honest heritage buildings in the village - unglamorous, enduring, and deeply connected to the everyday lives of the people who made Franschhoek what it is.