Church Graveyards | Sri Lanka’s older churchyards are quiet classrooms. Names from Britain and the Netherlands. Carved coats of arms. Epitaphs about fever, shipwreck, service, and love. These places sit within living cities and forts, beside roads and pilgrim routes. They compress three centuries of encounters into stone.
Kandy’s British Garrison Cemetery: A Hill-Country Ledger of Empire
Behind the Sri Dalada Maligawa precinct sits the British Garrison Cemetery, established in 1817 and closed to new burials in 1873. It holds 195 graves of men, women, and children. A final special-case burial occurred in 1951. Many deaths record tropical diseases such as malaria and cholera. Noted names include Sir John D’Oyly, drafter of the 1815 Kandyan Convention, and Lady Elizabeth Gregory, first wife of Governor William Henry Gregory. Restored in 1998 with support linked to Commonwealth grave care, it is maintained today by local trustees and volunteers. The draw here is the plain record of everyday colonial life: teenagers taken by fever within weeks, a planter killed by elephants, families losing several children in one season. Modest stones. Heavy history. St Paul’s Church nearby has been the parish anchor since the 1840s.
Colombo’s Wolvendaal Church: Walking Over the Dutch in Ceylon
Wolvendaal Kerk, consecrated in 1757, is a key Dutch-era landmark. The interior floor is paved with large inscribed tombstones, many relocated from earlier burial grounds. Memorials include several Dutch governors such as Johan Gerard van Angelbeek. Visitors literally walk over VOC history while viewing the ebony pulpit and period furnishings. The epitaphs, coats of arms, and Dutch script show how authority, faith, and family memory were inscribed in stone, tying Colombo to other Indian Ocean outposts and to kin networks back in the Low Countries.
Galle Fort’s Dutch Reformed Church: Gravestones Underfoot
Within UNESCO-listed Galle Fort, the Dutch Reformed Church holds a striking field of floor-set tombstones. Many were transferred from an older cemetery in the 1850s, consolidating the maritime capital’s record under one roof. The church, completed in the mid-18th century, mirrors Dutch Reformed architecture across the VOC world. The austere lines, teak and calamander fittings, and slabbed floor read like a catalogue of names, trades, dates, and ties—merchants, soldiers, ministers, and families shaped by a port city at the hinge of empire.
Why These Graveyards Matter
They humanise a complex period. You meet individuals, not abstractions: a surveyor felled by fever, a midshipman blown ashore, a child lost to cholera. Causes of death reflect disease ecology, limited medicine, and risks in travel and plantation work.
They are data. Dates of arrival and death map migration waves. Occupations point to shifting economies—military posts in the highlands after 1815, maritime trade in Galle, administration in Colombo. Repeated surnames across cities trace kin and company networks spanning Europe and Asia.
They show conservation in action. Sites like Kandy saw restorations in the late 1990s–2000s and are sustained by local trusts and friends’ groups. Weathering and vegetation are constant pressures. Good interpretation turns stones into stories.
How to Visit Responsibly
- Keep your voice low.
- Do not sit or place bags on tombstones.
- Ask before photographing people at worship.
- Respect posted hours if a church is closed.
- In Kandy, caretakers often give short talks when available.
- In Colombo and Galle, staff or volunteers may unlock areas or explain inscriptions. Leave a donation if a box is provided.
- Details can change. Check each church or parish notice before planning.
Suggested Two-Day Route
Day 1: Colombo → Galle
Morning at Wolvendaal when light skims the interior stones. Then travel south to Galle Fort for the Dutch Reformed Church and a slow circuit of the ramparts.
Day 2: Kandy loop
Train to Kandy. Visit the British Garrison Cemetery, St Paul’s Church, and the nearby museum circuit. You cover Dutch, British, and Anglican layers and see how coastal and hill-country histories meet.
Reading the Stones: What to Look For
- Iconography: skulls, hourglasses, vines, anchors. Dutch memento mori motifs signal theology and taste.
- Language: Dutch and Latin at Galle and Wolvendaal; English at Kandy. Spelling variants can help date a slab.
- Occupations: planter, surgeon, artilleryman, clerk, chaplain. A civil-military mix emerges.
- Family networks: repeated surnames across cities reveal VOC and British circuits of kin and company.
Context Within the City
These sites are not sealed museums. Wolvendaal stands inside a dense Tamil-Sinhala neighbourhood. The Galle church sits in a fort still lived in by families and traders. Kandy’s cemetery lies minutes from one of Buddhism’s most sacred shrines. Each is a contact zone. Visit with that in mind.
