Odysseys

'The Wolvendaal Church'

The Wolvendaal Church, also known as the Dutch Reformed Church, was built in 1749 by the Dutch East India Company (V.O.C) following their take over of the island's trade from the Portuguese Empire. It remains one of the oldest Protestant churches on the island.

It was originally the site of a small chapel on a hill built by the earlier Portuguese clergy. During that period, the hill was surrounded by swamps and wild marshlands and inhabited by jackals. The Portuguese misidentified the jackals for wolves and began calling the hill ‘Agoa de Loupe’ which translated to ‘Dale of Wolves’. When the Dutch took over and began discovering the island, they visited the chapel on the hill and called the area Wolvendaal, meaning ' Wolf's Dale or Valley'. The hill offered commanding views over the Port of Colombo, the Fort and its the surrounding town that caught the attention of the Dutch as well.

In 1736, the then Dutch Governor of Ceylon, Gustaaf Willem van Imhoff, wanted to initially demolish the Kasteel Jerk (Church) within Colombo Fort and build a Protestant church on the same site. However, his request to the V.O.C was not approved.
By 1743, Julius Valentyn Stein van Gollenesse became the Governor of Ceylon. He planned to build a new church beyond the the Fort and city walls that eventually became the Wolvendaal Church in 1757.

The age-old Wolvendaal Church was designed based on the Doric style and in the form a Greek cross. This was an influence of ancient Greek and Roman architecture. The walls are nearly 1.5 meters thick made of large kabok (a clay ironstone) with coral and lime plaster. The high roof in the middle of the building looks like a dome that was originally arched with brick and roofed in blue Bangor slate roof tiles. It was surmounted with a brazen lion which had a crown on its head, bearing a sword in one hand and seven arrows in the other, representing the seven united provinces of the Dutch Republic. In 1856, a bolt of lightning destroyed the lion and seriously damaged the dome and the roof was was later replaced with an iron covering.

Today, devotees and visitors could still experience the heritage of the church's past including the elevated pulpit, a Dutch governor's chair, an old pipe organ and several tombstones dating back for centuries ago.

The Kayman's Gate was once an entrance to the age-old Colombo Fort. It was located at the foot of the Wolvendaal Hill in the Pettah district of Colombo.

The original Colombo Fort was built by the Portuguese around mid 1500 as a fortification for their trading post at Colombo and was later captured by the Dutch in 1656.

Under the Portuguese, the fort's main entrance at the eastern rampart was Poorta Reinha, Queen's Gate. There was a passage way to the fort that was guarded by drawbridge and moat. Kayman's Gate comes from the Dutch word 'Kaaiman', which translates to Caiman (crocodile) in English. During that period, crocodiles (later identified as Mugger crocodiles and not Caimans) were found in large numbers in the Beira Lake and it's connected canals. The crocodiles would congregate around moats to eat the waste thrown out by the city dwellers within the fort.

'The Colombo Lighthouse Clocktower'

This historical Victorian era monument was originally built around 1856 as a clock tower and later on transformed into a lighthouse. The neo-classical tower was designed by Lady Emily Elizabeth Ward, the wife of a British Governor of Ceylon named Sir Henry George Ward (1797 – 1860). It remained the city's tallest structure at that period.

The original clock was built by the renowned English clockmakers, Dent. They were also responsible for manufacturing the clock on 'Big Ben' at Westminster Palace in 1852. It is believed that Colombo's clock was actually made in 1813 and was supposed to used 43 years earlier. But due to the high cost of construction of such a tower, it remained in the Commissariat Stores for almost half a century. When Lady Ward discovered it, she convinced her husband to install it after herself designed the tower.

The latter lighthouse elements were built by the Chance Brothers, English pioneers in glassworks of that era. It featured a revolving dioptric light visible for around 27 km from the sea.

The lighthouse was eventually decommissioned in 1952 after nearby buildings obscured the light from sea, and a new lighthouse was built by the nation's leaders following Sri Lanka's independence.

Craft a unique walking experience through the historic streets of Colombo and uncover its age-old colonial heritage with us.