Colombo Dutch Museum, Colombo Overview

The Colombo Dutch Museum is a beautiful two-story building which is a storehouse of some fantastic architecture and history of Dutch colonial rule of Sri Lanka. The Colombo Dutch museum was initially a the residence of the Dutch governor- Thomas Van Rhee, and it was inside the walls of this museum that a treaty was signed with the Dutch.

The building of the Colombo Dutch Museum has been used for many purposes so far, such as a college, military hospital, police station, seminary and even a post office. All this serves as evidence for the diverse range of activities which have taken place inside the Colombo Dutch Museum.

The restoration of the building took place after the wall fell, and today the museum is a storehouse of over 3000 artefacts like furniture, coins, ceramics, weapons and depicting many features of Dutch culture. So go ahead, and pay a visit to the everlasting Colombo Dutch Museum which has survived the test of time for hundreds of years even today.

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Entry Fees and Timings

Entrance fees: SLR 1200 for Adults and SLR 300 for Children
Timings:
Tuesday to Saturday: 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM
Closed on Mondays and Sundays

History of the Colombo Dutch Museum

The Colombo Dutch Museum was constructed during the Dutch occupation of Colombo from 1692 to 1697. It was during this period that the place acted as the official residence of the Dutch governor Thomas van Rhee. The building was later used as a teacher training college and as an institution for instructing the clergymen and priests between 1696 and 1796.

Further, there are some shreds of evidence which prove that the Colombo Dutch Museum was used as an orphanage under the supervision of Dutch East Indies Company VOC. The building later began to be used as a hospital and became a barracks somewhere around the second half of the 1800s.

In the era of the 1900s, it was used as a police training school which was set up and established by the British, to later becoming the Pettah post office in 1932. The year 1971, received heavy monsoons which led to the collapse of one of the exterior walls and the building was abandoned. This created a series of protests which was led by the Royal Asiatic Society and the Dutch Burgher Union which put pressure to restore the Colombo Dutch Museum.

Thus began the process of restoring the Dutch museum which commenced in 1977 and was completed by 1981, finally opening the museum to the public in the year 1982.

How To Reach Colombo Dutch Museum

The Colombo Dutch Museum is easily accessible from any part of Colombo. One can hire a private cab or a three-wheeler (tuk-tuk) to reach the destination.