Iluppakadavai Padavuthurai Old Survey Tower

Iluppakadavai Padavuthurai Old Survey Tower (Photo credit: Google street view)

Iluppakadavai Padavuthurai Old Survey Tower is a colonial period survey tower located in Mannar District, Sri Lanka. 

History

According to folklore, this tower is a construction of Portuguese who arrived in Sri Lanka at the beginning of the 16th century (Asanga & Nishantha, 2018). However, observing its architectural features, it can be assumed that this tower was built by the British after the establishment of the Survey Department in 1800.

The tower

The square-shaped tower is about 12-13 m in height (Asanga & Nishantha, 2018). It has five representative stories and they get smaller as the tower rises from the bottom to the top. The bottom story is made of cubic shape cut limestone rocks while other stories are built using bricks (Asanga & Nishantha, 2018). An arch-shaped passage along the east-west direction is found at the bottom story of the tower. The entrance of this passage is 1.7 m tall and 0.78 wide (Asanga & Nishantha, 2018). A square-shaped small opening can be seen running from bottom to top of the tower along with its central point (Asanga & Nishantha, 2018).

There is said to be a wall around this tower, but it is no more available (Asanga & Nishantha, 2018).

A protected monument

The survey tower at Iluppakadavai Padavuthurai belonging to Iluppakadavai village situated in Grama Niladhari Division, No. 04, Iluppakadavai, in the Divisional Secretary’s Division, Manthai South is an archaeological protected monument, declared by a government Gazette notification published on 24 March 2016.

References

1) Asanga, M. V. G. K.; Nishantha, I. P. S., 2018. Mannarama Distrikkaya (In Sinhala). Department of Archaeology (Sri Lanka). ISBN: 978-955-7457-10-9. pp.113-114.

2) The Gazette of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka. No: 1960. 24 March 2016. p.229.

Location Map

This page was last updated on 25 April 2022
For a complete tourist map follow this link: Lankapradeepa Tourist Map