Protect for posterity

By D.C. Ranatunga

“Don’t touch the old buildings. Renovate them but keep the old look intact.” This is what the Prime Minister told the officials of the Urban Development Authority (UDA) the other day while touring the Colombo Fort area. 

Not so long ago the previous Government also said the same thing. The UDA did renovate several buildings while maintaining the old world charm. The old Dutch Hospital which was once occupied by the Fort Police is one example.

I recall the days in the early 1950s when we used to go to Fort for an outing occasionally as students. We were at Ananda and we jumped on to a tramcar from Maradana and got to Fort paying 10 cents. In the mid-fifties while working at Lake House I used to often do a stroll in Fort during lunchtime. 

Walking down the crowded York Street leading to the Colombo Jetty, it was a familiar sight to see foreign tourists getting about under the covered pavements on the side of Cargills (building in existence from 1896) and Millers looking at the handicrafts on sale. 

One of the most popular items was lacework with women displaying their products. Wearing cloth and jacket, they invariably were dressed in lace jackets which the visitors admired. The Department of Cottage Industries had a shop which was later expanded to Laksala where the tourists found a good selection of souvenirs. 

The Customs office with a coating of white paint in the jetty was a landmark building in Fort standing by the sea. The passengers were brought to the jetty by boat from the ships which were anchored a little distance away. 

“The distance of the landing jetty from our ship will vary from a mile to a few hundred yards according to the berth allowed for anchorage. Passengers go ashore at their own convenience in launches, canoes or jolly boats, all of which ply for hire around the steamer. The boats are licensed. The rates of hire are observable in a prominent place upon arrival at the landing jetty and a jetty sergeant is present to afford information and check any incivility on the part of the boatmen,” writes H.W. Cave in the opening chapter of ‘Ceylon along the Rail Track’ (1910). Things had hardly changed in the 1950s.

The Grand Oriental Hotel (GOH) is one of the iconic buildings in Fort dating back to 1837 when a British military barracks was at the site. The barracks were later converted into hostels for soldiers. The luxurious GOH was built in 1875 and it was the first fully equipped hotel owned by Europeans in the East and the first in Sri Lanka with an electrically operated lift. 

The superb view of the harbour and the sea made it popular with foreign visitors. Bristol Hotel down York Street was another well- known hotel at the turn of the 20thcentury. The Bristol building where the hotel was sited was once the home of the Central Bank, if I remember right. 

The imposing Gaffoor Building in what was the start of Main Street (later named Sir Baron Jayatilleka Mawatha) built in 1907 housed a number of business outfits. In one corner was the Eastern Bank which was opened in 1920. 

Adjoining it was the showroom of the leading engineering firm Walker & Sons displaying Austin cars which the firm imported. Next to it was a favourite bookshop of mine, H W Cave & Company which stoked a large amount of books on varied subjects. In fact, it was the biggest bookshop in the heart of Fort with Cargills also having a section for books.

Opposite was the multi-storey Times Building from where the Times of Ceylon came out in the afternoons with Lankadeepa, Mirror and Sunday Times in the mornings. On the ground floor away from the main entrance was Studio Times.

Equally imposing was the Victoria Arcade which was the home for the National Bank of India.

On the opposite side in Price Street were two of the leading departmental stores – Colombo Apothecaries (1915) and Whiteaway Laidlaw & Co (1907) – both British-owned. They made a name for themselves, particularly for the high-quality imported shirts and slacks. 

Also down Price Street was the well-known travel firm, Thomas Cooks. Freudenberg’s head office was in the same area. At the end was the British High Commission, quite close to the Ministry of External Affairs down Queen Street. The Senate, the Cabinet Office, and the Ministry of Defence were also in the same building complex of government offices. The Queen’s House, then occupied by the Governor-General, was described by Cave thus: “Although not a handsome building, its massive masonry and spacious corridors provide what is most desirable in a tropical residence, protection from the sun’s rays, while the grounds of some four acres are shaded by beautiful trees. It was erected about the middle of the last (19th) century. We cannot give an adequate idea of the architecture or the general appearance of this building from a photograph, for it is not only in a somewhat confined position for so large a house, but also embowered in foliage.”

Immediately opposite Queen’s House was the General Post Office (GPO), which was accessible to all whether walking or coming by car. In fact, cars could be parked opposite the GPO then and you could always get a parking spot. A handsome flight of steps led to the spacious hall with postal counters. 

Further down Queen Street were three striking buildings belonging to three banks – the Hongkong & Shanghai Bank, Chartered Bank and Mercantile Bank. 

At the approach to Chatham Street was the Fort clock tower – earlier the city’s lighthouse as well. The lighthouse was later moved to the Marine Drive. Most of the shipping firms occupied the buildings further down opposite the Central Bank. On the left of the clock tower was yet another ‘special’ – the National Mutual Building. 

Some of the key Government offices were also housed in Fort in buildings architecturally varying from one to the other. The Transworks House was the home of the Ministry of Public Works and Transport in the 1950s. The Public Works Department (PWD) was next to it and a little away on the opposite side was the Registrar General’s Office (RGO) which was the repository of thousands of birth, marriage and death certificates then.

The CTO (Central Telegraph Office) was yet another landmark building which was occupied by the ‘hello girls’ – a whole set of busy females whose main job was to connect telephone calls taken to and from anywhere outside Colombo.  The original headquarters of Bank of Ceylon and the YMCA building were adjoining each another. Both have their own styles of architecture. One office which was crowded from morning till evening was the Employment Exchange, which tried to find jobs for the unemployed when the problem was not that serious.

As the hub of the island’s commercial capital, Fort has had a long history from the 18th century – from the time of the Dutch. That explains the architectural heritage of the city which must be protected for posterity.