The Sunday Mail
When the occupying Pioneer Column set off for Zimbabwe on June 28 1890 from the then Macloutsie, Bechuanaland (now Botswana), where it was temporarily based after its journey from South Africa, Mt Hampden was set to be its final destination.
However, without a nearby source of water, the Column eventually settled some 20km south in what is present-day Harare.
Mount Hampden was named by hunter and explorer Frederick Courtney Selous after John Hampden, the Puritan leader during the Cromwellian Wars in Britain.
Since then Mt Hampden has traditionally been a farming area; part of the Mashonaland Central greenbelt.
However, rapid population growth in Harare forced authorities in 2012 to rethink an idea first mooted nearly 120 years before.
It was decided that a new city be built around the Mt Hampden area, with the new Parliament Building being the stimulus for development.
Water this time would not be a problem.
Mazowe and Kunzvi dams, including four other smaller water bodies, will supply the new city with water.
The city is envisaged to encompass Nyabira, Mt Hampden and some parts of Mazowe, while bordering with Westgate on the present outskirts of Harare.
Preliminary plans show that the new city will have the Supreme and High Courts, the Reserve Bank, upmarket suburbs, hotels and shopping malls.
A university, technology centre, schools, churches, hospitals and industrial sites are some of the major features that will transform the landscape.
A State House and official residences for the Speaker and Senate President will also be constructed.
