Ooty

Ooty: Example for a Tumba-monument

Ooty, Udhagamandalam
In the Nilgiri Hills at an altitude of 2240 meters lies the hill station Ooty (early Ootacamund, today Udhagamandalam). During the first decades of the 19th century this place became more attractive to the employees of the Madras administration and the socalled "High Society" as a famous place for holidays during the hot summers on the coastal regions. The area came under British control with a treaty, signed with Tipu Sultan in Srirangapatnam in 1799. In 1819 John Sullivan, the collector of Coimbatore district, established a hill station at Ooty and spent 1.100 Rupees for the construction of a road between Coimbatore and Ootacamund. The place served not only the British as a retreat. The Maharaja of Mysore built a summer palace in style of a Swiss Chalet, called the "Fernhill Palace". The St. Stephens Church was built in 1829 and is said to be the oldest in the Nilgiri Hills. The churchyard is situated close to the church in a terraced style because of the hilly surroundings. The cemetery also contains the grave of the founder of Ooty, John Sullivan. Apart from the St. Stephens churchyard, there is also a new one next to the St. Thomas Church which contains mostly the graves of the 20th century.

Ooty - Typical Grave Constructions and Epitaphs
The most common monument at the churchyard of Ooty is the tumba, as seen on the picture above. Although we found pavilions in large numbers on the other burial grounds, here there is only one sample. We also found a few obelisks and sarcophagus on this cemetery. The most common tumba differs in size and in the number of slabs which contain the inscriptions, mostly made of marble. Frequently repeated are the fluting hints of columns and the light hint of a roof like top. Like the most grave-monuments also these tumbas are built of bricks which are covered by plaster. All of these tumbas appear quite magnificent and solemn because of the size and the classical simplicity which is part of the colonial style transferred from Great Britain. It seems that the special composition of some higher rank people and the quite close period in which the most graves were erected (63% within 20 years; between 1829 and 1859) had an influence on the appearance of this cemetery. This also meant that the magnificent tumba-graves set a fashion in the construction of grave monuments. In the church we found an interesting collection of epitaphs which consists quite a lot of slabs made of copper. One example is shown on the photon the right. They are all erected in the second half of the nineteenth century and put here in remembrance of higher class administration and military employees of the Madras district. They also represent a classical style and correspond with the cemetery outside.

Ooty: St. Stephens Church, Epitaph