World Prisons
All prisons

South Africa

Breakwater Lodge

Low
Verified 29 May 2026
Fresh · 0d ago

Data is aggregated from public sources and may be incomplete or out of date. Always verify with primary sources before acting on any figure. See data sources.

For families

How to send mail, money, and visit Breakwater Lodge

Step-by-step guidance using the South Africa system — addresses, money services, visit booking, what to bring on your first visit.

Open toolkit
Photograph of Breakwater Lodge

Gallery

From Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY-SA where not otherwise stated).

  • Breakwater Campus 1.jpg

    Photo by HelenOnline via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

  • Breakwater Campus 2.jpg

    Photo by HelenOnline via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

  • Breakwater Campus 3.jpg

    Photo by HelenOnline via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

  • Breakwater Campus entrance.jpg

    Photo by HelenOnline via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

  • Breakwater Lodge in Cape Town, 1997.jpg

    Photo by BKP via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

  • Breakwater Lodge model building.jpg

    Photo by HelenOnline via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

  • Breakwater Lodge.jpg

    Photo by Rodw via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

  • Breakwater Prison 20.JPG

    Photo by Lennon Fletcher via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Background

The Breakwater Lodge in the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, Cape Town, South Africa was built as a prison in 1859. It is now part of the University of Cape Town and a hotel. The original prison was built in 1859 for convicts from Britain at the suggestion of John Montagu who was the colonial secretary to the Cape of Good Hope from 1843 to 1852. They were transported to The Cape to work on the construction of the breakwater which would allow the harbour which is now the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront to be built. The remains of a treadmill on which prisoners were punished can still be seen.

Source: Wikipedia article lead, CC-BY-SA.

Capacity

Current population

Occupancy

Year opened

Operational

Facility profile

Operator

Population held

Mixed/unknown

Opened

Region

Security level

Death-row facility

No

Conditions

No conditions summary available yet.

Visiting

No visiting information available.

Mailing

No mailing information available.

Practical info

Contact the operator's website for inmate-specific procedures.

Known issues

No major issues documented in our database.

Contact & address

No public contact details available.

Conditions Risk Score

Derived signal — not a judgement. How it's calculated

Insufficient data
We don't have enough public data on this facility to score it. Have something to add? Send us a correction.

Data completeness

16%

How many of our profile fields are populated. We surface this so families and researchers know the limits.

Sources