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The architects involved in deciding where to place the statue were Herbert Baker and Masey. The statue was disliked from the moment it arrived in the Cape7. The statue was erected in 1908 just preceding the formation of the Union of South Africa when there was a substantial amount of tension between the British and South African factions after the Anglo Boer war. Location in the Company’s Garden on a secondary axis is very different from the original concept of providing a visual landmark at the top of Adderley Street. There were arguments relating to the scale of the statue at the top of Adderley Street and the Rhodes statue would be too overwhelming in the position. Its proposed location was rejected as Masey wrote to Baker “the statue would dwarf and destroy the proportion of the Cathedral and indeed everything else in its vicinity. I am sorry to write to you so strongly but I am convinced it would be such a fatal mistake to place it where it is now proposed that I prefer that we should disassociate ourselves entirely from any responsibility in connection with the proceedings” later in the same letter he refers to a distance to the texture of the sculpture which he finds ‘rather smooth and greasy like a penny”8. Ironically a statue of a similar scale, General J.C. Smuts, was placed in the location in the 1970s. The design of the pedestal was by Herbert Baker. The non-orthogonal and rough-hewn design and choice of sandstone material symbolic of Rhodes as part of the natural environment and his links with the mining industry which was his most significant power base. Similar stonework was used for Rhodes House at the top of St George’s Mall and his burial place in the Matopos has strong stone imagery. There is a strong directional quality of the statue with the left-hand arm raised and the hand pointed north towards Africa. This can be contrasted to the Jan van Riebeek statue which faces south and asserts a different sense of occupation.