Richmond Castle, Kalutara

Again, this came out of nowhere. I went to Kalutara with one of my friends on his bike to visit his sister who lives on close to Adikarigoda (which is passing Richmond Castle) on Riverside road.

We left Nugegoda around 10.30 am and reached his sister’s around 12.00 noon, just in time for lunch.

On our way, I saw this castle and asked his sister about it when we reached there and she said that we could visit the place. I was immediately, as always, hooked.

We had our lunch and left around 2.00 pm without having tea coz I was desperately looking forward to visiting this place.

So we came to the entrance around 2.15 and bought the tickets (Rs. 20/- each).

Entrance to the Castle

Ticket prices

So along the road to the castle we went happily. (Unfortunately, I didn’t have my camera, however, the previous month I had bought my new phone, Trusted Nokia X6 and it has a 5 MP camera which I had to be content with. However, the pics came nicely, so much better than I anticipated, however I again want to visit the place more leisurely with my digital camera)

View from the front

There were a few people already there. There’s a caretaker who stays in the castle doing the cleaning and gardening.

View from the side

He gives a full tour of the castle, so don’t miss it and give him some money (about 100/-) after that.

We started at the main hall which used to have a specially designed air conditioning system. The Kalu River is about 500-600m away from the castle. So they had dug a tunnel from the Castle to the river, one entrance facing the river (just above the face of it) and the other entrance coming up through holes in the main hall)

So the fresh and cool air comes along the tunnel and enters the hall through the holes made on the floor. This is such a wonderful method of Air Conditioning and it had worked really well coz even the Queen of England (if I’m not mistaken it was Queen Mary) had stayed in this Castle when she visited Sri Lanka.

The hole which brought fresh air from Kalu Ganga

Queen and her entourage visiting the Mudliyar’s

This castle is more than 100 years old and has very unique features. This belonged to N. D. A. Silva Wijesinghe Mudalithuma.

The Mudliyar

The Mudliyar

The materials used to build this house are all imported from countries like Burma (teak furniture), Italy (marble and colored glass) and bricks from Europe and India.

Teak from Burma

Colour Glass from Italy

Windows with beautiful design

Remains of Vases

It also has one of the very oldest pictures (around 120 years depicting the father of Mudaliyar) taken by the first studio in Sri Lanka (Plate & Co, Ceylon)

Very old pic of the Mudliyar’s father

Oldest Studio in SL

Mother

It also has over 105 years old teak staircase imported by Burma. However, you can’t climb or walk on these as they’re trying to preserve it into the future which is a good thing.

Teak staircase

…..and its design

Writing says it all

The walls are also very interesting coz they must be the oldest sound proof systems in the world. The wall is built in two parts using wood panels and covering it with a special coating like plaster of Paris thus leaving a space between the two wood panelings. This makes the room sound proof coz of the air vacuum created in the middle of the wall.

You can see a vertical cross section of the wall, this shows the wood panels and the plaster used to cover it.

Sound proof wall

Vertical cross section of the wall

You can see the wood panels and the coating well but please don’t touch them coz it will cause irreparable damage.

Most important thing I found was a letter written to the mother of the Mudaliyar. It relates to a loan given by her (Mrs. Silva Wijesinghe) to the queen of England (Rs. 2500/-, now this amounts to about 2.5m US dollars) in order to treat the wounded British Soldiers.

The letter written by the queen thanking for the loan – Click Image to Enlarge

Would you believe that a person in Sri Lanka lent 2.5m US dollars to the queen of United Kingdom? Not even in my wildest dreams had I dreamt that. Imagine what a proud country we had been and our sad situation at present.

The queen had even attended the Mudaliyar’s wedding with her entourage which marks the reputation of him in the UK. Even when the governor made a speech, he first mentions the Mudliyar’s name above all the others which I found very fascinating.

Governor’s speech – Click Image to Enlarge

It’s also rumored that they had built more than 20 pandols along the road where the wedding couple was coming.

One of the many pandols built to welcome the wedding couple

On wedding day

On wedding day

Mudliyar and his wife – Click Image to Enlarge

Unfortunately, he and his wife couldn’t have kids so he arranged some statues of kids (those days they didn’t have pics of children).

Statues of babies

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You’ll see statues of small children along the garden which can be seen from the balcony and the master bed room.

The beautiful garden (can see the statues in White)

However, after sometime he got frustrated with his marriage and sent his wife back to her parents.

The castle also has a large collection of pics of special occasions. One of which shows the wedding cake and it’s said that it was about 11 feet in height. Must be the tallest wedding cake in the whole world

Tallest wedding cake in the world??? most probably

Around 1950s he’s given away all his wealth to the government.

This is a wonderful place and a must-see.