Amangalla

Church Street runs along the inside of the ramparts of Galle Fort, past the Dutch Reformed Church of 1755, and the long white building beside it has had guests since 1865. It was the New Oriental Hotel for 140 years. Since 2005 it has been Amangalla, the Aman group's hotel in the city of Galle, on the south coast of Sri Lanka.

History

The Dutch East India Company began the building in 1684 as quarters for its governor and officers of the garrison. When the British took Galle in 1796 the buildings became barracks, and in 1865 they were converted into the New Oriental Hotel, the first hotel in Ceylon to be run on European lines. Passengers on the P&O steamers that called at Galle before Colombo took over as the island's main port stayed here. For much of the twentieth century it was run by the Brohier family, and Nesta Brohier kept it going, with its ballroom and its long verandah, until Aman took the lease in the early 2000s. The restoration kept the fabric of the house and added the pool and the spa in the gardens behind. The fort itself was inscribed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 1988.

Architecture and design

The building is a Dutch colonial house on the grand scale: thick walls, a tiled roof, a verandah of columns along Church Street and a ballroom with a timber ceiling at its heart. Floors are old teak and jakwood, the furniture is Dutch and British colonial, and the restoration left the original planks, shutters and the scale of the rooms as they were. Behind the main house a garden of frangipani and coconut palms runs up to the ramparts, and here the pool and the spa were built in the same low, whitewashed manner.

Rooms and suites

There are 28 rooms and suites, most in the main building and a few in the Garden House at the back. Ceilings reach four metres or more. Beds are four-posters in local hardwood, bathrooms have deep tubs, and many rooms open onto the verandah or the gardens. The largest suite, the Garden House, has its own pool.

Dining

The Dining Room, in the former ballroom, serves Sri Lankan and European food, and the rice and curry served here draws on the cooking of the southern coast. The Zaal, the old great hall, is the bar and the place for afternoon tea, a ritual the hotel kept from its New Oriental days. Meals are also served on the verandah facing the street.

Wellness

The Baths, the hotel's spa, were built in the garden with a hydrotherapy suite, steam rooms, a cold plunge and treatment rooms, and offer Ayurvedic treatments alongside the Aman menu. The outdoor pool, 21 metres long, lies among the palms beneath the fort wall.

Weddings and events

Amangalla hosts weddings in the Zaal and in the garden, and the whole hotel can be booked for a wedding party, which is the usual arrangement for celebrations of any size since there are only 28 rooms. The Zaal and the Dining Room are the two rooms used for private dinners and small meetings; the hotel does not publish formal capacities.

Location

The hotel stands on Church Street at the corner of Middle Street, in the centre of the fort, with the lighthouse, the ramparts and the old Dutch warehouses all within a few hundred metres. The Galle railway station and the bus stand lie just outside the fort gate. Colombo is about two hours away by the Southern Expressway, and Bandaranaike International Airport, north of Colombo, about two and a half to three hours. Mattala airport in the south-east is closer in kilometres but has few flights. Amangalla is the only luxury hotel in Galle Fort itself, and its sister property, Amanwella, is on the beach at Tangalle, an hour and a half east along the coast.