Morningside Area Profile

Morningside at a glance

The beautiful garden suburb of Berea is situated on a ridge overlooking the city of Durban and the Indian Ocean. In Durban’s early days, the scenic area was favoured by gentry who wanted to get away from the dust and noise of the city centre. They built large homes and surrounded them with orchards, paddocks and fields.

Some of the gracious mansions from this bygone area remain and a number have been converted to business premises. Today the area offers a wide range of residential homes from small student flats to penthouse apartments and grand mansions. The area has a great mix of architectural styles from Edwardian to Victorian as well as modern, art-deco buildings. The picturesque tree-lined streets and green park spaces lend a post-card quality to this popular suburb.

Berea offers a wide variety of pavement restuarants, cafes, clubs and boutiques. The area is central to everything and just a short distance to the city centre. It is home to the popular Musgrave Shopping Centre, the Durban Country Club, numerous mosques, the Howard College Campus of the University of KwaZulu-Natal as well as the Durban Botanical Gardens. 

The Botanical Gardens, on the eastern slope of the ridge, began as a site for growing experimental tropical crops. Today it offers a herbarium, an orchid house, a cycad collection, a garden for the blind and a charity tea garden. It is a popular venue for outdoor music concerts.

Renowned schools such as Maris Stella, Clifton School, Durban High and Durban Girls College are a great attraction for young families choosing to make these areas home.-