Another place of interest is the Rhodes Memorial which is also situated on the hillside to the south of the University. This memorial is in honour of Cecil John Rhodes. He was a man who came to South Africa in 1870 to join his brother on a cotton farm. In 1871 he moved to Kimberley where he speculatively began digging for diamonds.

In 1880 he founded the De Beers Consolidated Mines and later the Consolidated Gold Fields of South Africa operating from the Witwatersrand. The rest is history! He became the Prime Minister of the Cape in 1890 and remained in his post until his resignation in 1896. The memorial is built on the site where he used to place a bench to look out over Table bay to the north, False bay to the south and the Hottentots Holland Mountains to the east. Its a huge monument built of granite with steps leading down to a rostrum where one can look out over Cape Town. The stairs are lined by granite block walls which have statues of lions lying on them looking out over the Cape. In the centre of the staircase is a statue of a man on a horse looking east.

The area around the intersection of Main Road and Belmont Road is Rondebosch's main commercial area, with several small shopping malls and two supermarkets. Also located in this area are Rondebosch Town Hall, now occupied by the Rondebosch branch of the City Libraries, and Rondebosch railway station, which is the main public transport facility in the suburb. A smaller commercial area lies just to the east on the corner of Belmont and Campground Roads; there is also a row of shops along Milner Road in the southeastern part of the suburb. The rest of the suburb is used for educational and residential purposes, with the residential areas being generally denser further to the west where the influence of the University of Cape Town is felt.

Two canalised streams run from the slopes of Table Mountain through Rondebosch; the Liesbeeck River runs northwards between Main Road and the railway, while the Black River runs in a northeasterly direction through the eastern part of the suburb. The terrain is generally flat east of the railway line, while to the west it slopes upwards towards Devil's Peak.