THIRUVANANTHAPURAM : On a 2.45-acre church plot, in the heart of Thiruvananthapuram city, lies 248 tombs of colonial-era Europeans. Among those buried here are more than half a dozen British soldiers who served on the Nair brigade of the erstwhile Travancore kingdom.
The cemetery is also the resting place of some eminent Hindus, including Swami John Dharma Theerthar, a close associate of Sree Narayana Guru, and educationist Gauri Sankunni.
Land for the cemetery was gifted to the British by the maharaja in 1814 to bury their soldiers. In 1859, a small chapel was constructed, which later grew into the CSI Christ Church. Christ Church, which comes under the Madhya Kerala diocese, with its headquarters in Kottayam, was built in Gothic Vastu style and now boasts over 1,200 parishioners.
Surrounded by more than 1,000 graves spread across a verdant patch cooled by hundreds of trees, some of which are 200 years old, the church is now known as ‘kallara pally’.
A separate burial register was maintained for the European officers and their families. The interesting document throws light on the various reasons for their deaths -- which ranged from teething, influenza, lung infection to even cancer. Major Rober Sherriff, who died in 1850 at the age of 44, was a commander with the Nair brigade. His tomb, which resembles a mausoleum, was erected by none other than Marthanda Varma. Commander Thomas Cranford Esq and 32-year-old Lt J E Falkhney are among the other members of the brigade buried here.
Another famous Briton who is laid to rest here is Charles Edward Robert, the 28-year-old headmaster of Marthanda Varma’s free school.
K I Simon is among the Malayalis interred here. A native of Ayroor, near Kollam, he was a physician to the Travancore king and died at a young age of 24.
M J Kuruvilla, one of the two church wardens, says the oldest tomb, which dates back to 1814, belongs to Lt Henry Dixon, who also died young, at the age of 28. “The cemetery has many monumental sepulchres as well as ordinary tombs.
Many of the epitaphs have literary flourishes and biblical verses. Some of the sepulchres built in the original European style, with domes and arches, add to the architectural splendour of the graveyard,” adds Kuruvilla, who retired as deputy general manager of Nabard.
Another register maintained for Indians has details of around 1,400 burials from 1866 onwards. The second warden, Korah Abraham, recalls that during the old days bodies were carried on a horse-ridden wooden hearse donated by the Travancore maharaja in the 1800s.
“The hearse was later placed in a glass chamber by the family of Andrew Jacob Greenfield, a former parishioner,” said Korah.
When Christ Church opened its doors to Hindus it also welcomed the mortal remains of a priest, Charles Mead, a British missionary then based in Neyyoor, in neighbouring Nagercoil, who kicked off a controversy by marrying a Hindu widow. He used to serve at the nearby Mateer Memorial CSI Church, which is attached to the South Kerala Diocese, at LMS Junction.
A war memorial, constructed to the south of Christ Church, was once also part of the campus. A road that was added later separated it from the church.
QR-coded trees
Trees that spread like a canopy range from blue jacaranda, mahogany, frangipani, oriental persimmon, queens flower tree, rain tree to copper pod tree, and many others, which can be identified by the individual coded digital name boards. An initiative of Prof Thomas Biju Mathew, who heads the ecology forum of the church, each board features a QR code, which provides the scientific details of each tree