Hanwella Rest House

A rather cryptic sounding Sinhala poem runs as follows:

Pun sandha séma payaala rata mædhdhé

Ran kendhi séma peeraala pita mædhdhé

Maara senanga vatakaragena yama yudhdhé

Lewké mæthindhu adha thaniyama wela mædhdhé

In English this may be rendered as:

Like the full moon shining in the middle of the country
Like golden strands combed down the middle of the back

[As] the armies of Mara surrounded [the Buddha] in the Yama war
The Minister Lewke is today alone in the middle of the field

This refers to an episode in the First Kandyan War of 1803-1805. Sri Wickrama Rajasinghe, the last king of Kandy was fleeing, having been defeated by the British in battle. As James Cordiner (A Description of Ceylon, London, 1807; Dehiwela, Tisara Prakasakayo, 1983) tells us:

The disappointed Monarch of Kandy was overtaken in his flight by Lewke Ralehamy, Dessauwe of the four corles, who led the attack on Hangwell, and the Maha Mottiar, or chief secretary of state, both of whose heads, in the violence of his indignation, he ordered to be immediately struck off; and left their dead bodies unburied in a ravine one mile beyond Royberg.

Sri Wickrama Rajasinghe

The battle from which Sri Wickrama fled was the last of the many skirmishes which followed the recapture by British troops of the fort at Hanwella (pronounced hung-wal-luh) - Cordiner's Hangwell.

The British forces involved in the battle were ad-hoc groups of soldiers of the 51st Regiment of Foot and the 65th Regiment of Foot, supported by Indian Sepoys and local Lascoreens, all under the command of Captain William Pollock of the 51st. The war-standard of the Kandyan kingdom, captured by Pollock during this battle, was later to be the basis for Sri Lanka's modern flag.

Hanwella, which means 'skin sands', was the site of an ancient ferry route across the Kelani river. When Mayadunne, the son of Vijayabahu VII (mentioned in the post on Menikkadawara) became king of Sitawaka, he built a fort here to protect the ferry. After the death of his son Rajasinghe I (see post on Pethangoda), the Portuguese occupied the fort and rebuilt it in their own style - mostly consisting of earthworks - in 1597.

The Dutch, who took over the lowlands of Sri Lanka from the Portuguese, built a new star fort at Hanwella using kabook (laterite) rock, completing it in 1684. One look at the plan of the fort shows that it was made according to the latest European design:

Plan of the Hanwella fort (Department of Archaeology)

Hanwella was on the border between the Kandyan and Dutch (and later, after 1796, British) territories, until the fall of the Kingdom of Kandy in 1815. It occupied a strategic position athwart the principal route from Colombo to the interior. It was also necessary to quell rebellions within the occupied territory: in 1797, shortly after the British occupied the lowlands, a rebellion broke out and sepoys of the 35th Madras Regiment were besieged within the walls of the Hanwella fort and took casualties.

The map below is an old Dutch one of Hanwella showing the location of the fort. Note that North is Down, a fact which may not be appreciated by Euro-centric readers.

A Dutch map of the fort situated at Hanwella

Robert Percival of the 19th Regiment of Foot tells us (An account of the island of Ceylon, London: C & R Baldwin, 1803) that the Dutch had built a rest house here, which was in a bad state of repair by 1800. According to Cordiner, the Fort at Hanwella was in a ruinous condition at the time of the Battle of Hanwella in 1803.

The Hanwella resthouse

The pleasant modern rest house occupies the site of the fort. In its grounds may be seen some of the remains of the military structure. And there is no mistaking the thick interior walls of the older parts of the building. Note the thickness of the walls surrounding this bedroom window:

Bedroom window

Nevertheless, the rest house is agreeable, being cool and affording a great view of the river; early in the morning one may even see the mountains of the central massif, and sometimes Adam's Peak. It is a wonderful place to sip tea and gaze at the water. In earlier days, this was done using two old stone seats which adorn the gardens overlooking the river. Here is one of them:

Stone seat and rear verandah of rest house

This stone seat has a history. In 1870 the rest house was visited by the then Duke of Edinburgh, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and Rufus Sewell lookalike Alfred Ernest Albert. At the time he was captain of HMS Galatea, and was the first member of the Royal Family to visit Sri Lanka. This was soon after he had been shot and wounded in Sydney.

Alfred Duke of Edinburgh (photo courtesy of thePeerage.com website)

In 1875 it was the turn of his older brother the Prince of Wales Albert Edward (later Edward VII). Details of the prince's earlier visit to Travancore can be found here. Here he is with his fianceé Alexandra Caroline Marie Charlotte Louise Julia zu Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, Princess of Denmark, on their engagement in 1862.

Edward and Alexandra (photo courtesy Open University)

Edward later married Alexandra. In 1882, their two eldest sons, Jack-the-Ripper suspect and Duke of Clarence Albert Victor and Prince George Frederick Ernest Albert (later King George V), who were serving as midshipmen on HMS Bacchante, also sojourned here.

Princes Albert Victor and George (photo courtesy of English Monarchs website)

The visits of the princes were commemorated by inscribing the stone seats. The inscription on this seat marks the visit of Edward VII - presumably it had less moss on it when it supported the Royal Bottom:

Stone seat 2009

All of these confusingly-named Royal Alberts planted trees in the gardens, which Henry W Cave (The Book of Ceylon, London: Cassell, 1908) says were still flourishing some decades later. Today one particular tree, the Jak Tree (Artocarpus heterophyllus) planted by Edward VII behind the stone seat in the pictures above, has been preserved.

The Royal Jak Tree

The four princes, sitting on the stone seats, would have had a wonderful view of the river, later immortalised in this photograph (c. 1900) by HW Cave :

View from the rest-house, Hanwella

Alas, this view is no more. Instead there is a great big concrete bridge built smack in the middle of the prospect. Undoubtedly the bridge fills a great need, but one would have thought they would find a slightly less beautiful spot to ruin with it.

Modern view from the rest-house, Hanwella

The downstream panorama, on the other hand, is unspoiled. You can look out westward from the dining room across the gardens, dotted here and there with the ruins of the fort's ramparts.

Downstream prospect

A closer look at the bottom right of the photograph of the garden, above, reveals a log-like reptile. This might give one a bit of a shock, especially if one knows that, according to Percival, a private of the 19th Regiment of Foot was eaten by a crocodile here in 1800. However, in this case it turned out to be a Kabaragoya, a water monitor lizard (Varanus salvator), shown below in close-up.

A Kabaragoya all puffed up with its own importance

The kabaragoya puffs itself up when it sees a potential enemy. Usually, however, it keeps to itself. It eats snakes' eggs and so is a useful agent for controlling the serpent population. Unfortunately, it is hunted (illegally) for its oil, which is useless for everything except poisoning people and hexing them. There must surely be more efficient ways of getting rid of one's enemies than going out and killing a relatively harmless reptile - especially given the ease with which pesticides may be procured which would ensure the morbidity of one's victims.

Hanwella marked with blue pin

Hanwella may be reached from Colombo along the Low Level Road or the High Level Road. It is an obvious stop on the way to Nuwara Eliya up the Ginigathena Pass. It is also an excellent base of operations for visiting the Ruwanwella and Avissawella areas.

Lewke memorial (larger image here)

The place where Lewke Dissawe was executed is marked by a small memorial stone, which can be seen where the present Low Level and High Level roads meet, a short distance eastward from Hanwella rest house. The poem which began this post is carved thereon.