Jubilee Kanuwa

May 28th:

The Jubilee Post in Mirihana has been a landmark for as long as anyone can remember.  People give directions by it "turn left at the Jubilee Post", get off the bus at "Jubilee Post".  There is a place called the "Jubilee Post Junction".  This is a "T" intersection of one-lane roads where, in the island at the middle of the intersection, is a small - maybe 4' tall - unassuming post...  the Jubilee Post. It could be one of those cement posts that is used for barbed wire fences.

I have often wondered what this Jubilee was that was commemorated by this tiny memorial.  Today, as we passed by it yet again, on our way back home from the dentist, I asked LT about it.

He said this was the post that was set up in honor of Queen Victoria's (England) Diamond Jubilee celebrations in 1897.  Who knew this small unassuming monument that no one pays any attention to was THAT old!  I had no idea that these little towns and little roads were that historic either, or that this intersection has been a landmark for that long! But apparently one of the roads... Kotte Road - was part of the original Kotte fort of King Parakramabahu the 6th (late 1400's).

In reading up on the web, it seems this whole area was part of the King's fortress "Kotte", the last fortress of one of the last kings to rule all of Sri Lanka - King Parakramabahu the 6th of Kotte.  He fought several wars, and fought the Dutch invasion, but obviously, he (actually, his successors) lost that one.  :)

This then became an area where the Dutch Burghers (descendants of the Dutch immigrants) resided.  Later, it has been populated by other ethnicities, mostly the Sinhalese.  Before the times of the High Level Road, and Galle Road, this intersection must have been a big enough metropolis to host the Queen's Diamond Jubilee marker, even though Mirihana has now turned in to yet another nondescript suburb of Colombo.  

http://www.dailynews.lk/2012/02/02/fea30.asp