The little seaside suburb of St James, named after the first church built there by the Roman Catholics in 1852, is just past Muizenberg on the way to Kalk Bay, on the False Bay coast of Cape Town. St James' small beach, with its charming colourful beach huts and large tidal pool is popular with the locals and visitors alike and the beach is packed with bathers and sun worshippers in peak season, particularly because it is so well sheltered from the westerly wind.

St James is predominantly a residential suburb. It is just a stone's throw away from Kalk Bay and its kaleidoscope of restaurants, 2nd-hand shops and coffee shops and many of the homes of St James date back to Victorian times and are worth more than a cursory glance. Rhodes' holiday cottage is close by and you can visit the preserved house where he died in 1902.