12k walk about the churches of the cantonment

 

We all assembled and started from Garuda mall. Sunil Pichamuthu who had been our son Davids classmate and who lives off Hayes rd was the curator of the walk. "We will walk around the cantonment area and I will share whatever history I have of the churches."Said Sunil. Around 12 years ago when I was with the Deccan Herald, I ran a column called “Back & Forth” in which I wrote covering most the heritage buildings in the Central Business District (CBD) of Bangalore, which dated to the colonial era

The first heritage church we walked down to was the Tamil Wesley Church in Ashok Nagar. When I wrote about it it was still the old heritage structure, but now the old church has been replaced with a swanky new building, reflecting the new status of its congregation. In the old days according to history, it was a poorer church, where the drivers and servants of the British sahibs who attended an Anglican service in St Mark's Cathedral, were sent to.

The second church was the Mar Thoma Syrian Church on Primrose road. In AD52, It is traditionally believed that St. Thomas, the disciple of Jesus Christ visited India and established seven churches on the Malabar Coast.

The third church was the ​Holy Trinity Church which is a Protestant church, located at Trinity circle. This is at the east end of the MG Road and was once visited by distinguished personalities like Lord Cornwallis and Winston Churchill. It was established in 1852 and has a great military history attached to it.

Walking down to Ulsoor we reached the fourth church– The Wesleyan Centenary Kannada Devalaya built in 1913 on Bazaar street, Ulsoor. The stone building was painted a beautiful blue grey with white and brick red embellishments and seemed to be newly renovated.

  We walked down to our fifth church which was the beautiful Saint Andrews Church built in the famed Gothic architectural style. According to the church website, it was completed and opened for service on 18 November 1866. The cost of construction (including the land) was Sterling Pounds 4,500 (INR 45,000), the cost covered by private subscriptions and government grant.

St Paul's Church was the sixth church we visited and is located in Shivaji Nagar. It is located in the corner of Old Poor House Road, and Bowring Hospital Road, next to the Bowring and Lady Curzon Hospital, Bangalore Cantonment. St. Paul's has the distinction of being the very first Tamil Anglican Church in the erstwhile Mysore State.

St. Mary's Basilica, a Roman Catholic church, was the seventh and last church that we visited on  M F Noronha Road, Shivaji Nagar It is among the oldest churches at Bangalore and the first church in the state that has been elevated to the status of a minor basilica.The design of the majestic Gothic-style church is credited to Rev L E Kleiner. It was consecrated on 8 September 1882.

I remember my Dad calling it the 1 anna church built during the terrible plague in Bangalore, where thousands died. The church was built with 1 annas collected he said. The total amount spent on the construction of the new church. including the pulpit and the statues, was Rs. 29,659, a laughable amount in today's expensive world.

At the end of the walk which really was 12k we decided to take an auto home as trudging home from Shivajinagar was not an option!