HISTORY OF
TEMBO HOUSE HOTEL BUILDING
HISTORY OF
TEMBO HOUSE HOTEL BUILDING
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Before Tembo House Hotel was a hotel, it was many other things in its past life. Go back in time to as you see the evolution of the building that today celebrates our hospitable history.

The Brief History of Tembo

Our Story

They say that an elephant never forgets. Tembo House Hotel is named after the elephant, and that alone is a perfect excuse to retell and tell our history, even though in a brief way. So come and journey with us down memory lane for a minute. 

Sansibar Old Territory

The building that is the Tembo House Hotel has stood witness to much of Zanzibar’s history and housed some of its most famous guests. The beachfront at Tembo House Hotel is where for centuries between the 8th Century AD and the 15th Century AD fishermen brought in their haul from the sea. Boats lined the shores then like they do today. From Tembo, you would have seen

The building that is the Tembo House Hotel has stood witness to much of Zanzibar’s history and housed some of its most famous guests. The beachfront at Tembo House Hotel is where for centuries between the 8th Century AD and the 15th Century AD fishermen brought in their haul from the sea. Boats lined the shores then like they do today. From Tembo, you would have seen the first Portuguese ships to ever sail to Zanzibar in the late 15th century. With influences from China, India, Oman and the Bantu people, one of the earliest stone buildings in Zanzibar’s Stone Town rose.

Figure 2 An Illustration of Zanzibar in the 19th Century

Figure 3 The British Consulate in the foreground and the American Consulate in the background. Later, it would become the Cowasjee Dinshaw and Brothers Company building

Fast forward to the 19th century and this is where the first American consulate in Zanzibar was set up in 1836, soon after the Omani Sultanate moved its headquarters to Zanzibar in 1832. We can only assume that the Sultans and Consuls shared cups of tea with the Zanzibar sunset in the background. But we know for sure that the grounds of Tembo were walked upon by famous explorers such as Ludwig Krapf, Henry Morton Stanley and almost certainly David Livingstone

EARLY VIEW

TEMBO HOUSE BUILDING

Figure 4 An early view of the Tembo House Hotel building

The Tembo House Hotel would later host one of, if not the largest, trading company in the East African coast from the early 1880s: The Cowasjee Dinshaw and Brothers Company. Here, commerce and friendship thrived, and a wooden elephant that stood in the courtyard witnessed it all.

That elephant, ‘tembo’ in Swahili, is what gave this place its name. If you visit Tembo, you will walk where our other great guests have walked. You will walk in the company of the great pacifist Mahatma Gandhi, the transformative Indian PM Indira Gandhi, the music icon Freddie Mercury, the media personality Peter Andre and many more great names.

Figure 5 Mahatma Gandhi in Zanzibar in 1914

.Figure 6 A photo of the Tembo House Hotel building, possibly from the early 20th century

 

So welcome, be part of our great history.

Location

P.O. BOX 3974 Shangani,
Zanzibar
Stonetown

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