Colonial Architecture Walk

The British colonial architecture of Pyin Oo Lwin is one of the great curiosities of Myanmar. Brick and timber houses with English gables, turrets, pitched roofs, and formal gardens line the streets of the old town — an architectural ensemble that looks like a small English market town has been lifted wholesale and set down at 1,000 metres in the Shan Hills.

The Candacraig (formerly the Thiri Myaing Hotel), a mock-Tudor mansion that once served as the chummery (bachelor officers' quarters) of the Bombay Burma Trading Company, is the most celebrated example. A walk through the residential streets around the colonial core reveals dozens of similar houses, many still lived in by families, with gardens growing roses, snapdragons, and vegetables that would be at home in England.

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A story
Pyin Oo Lwin was named Maymyo after Colonel James May, who commanded the British garrison here in the 1880s. It served as the summer capital of the colonial government — when the heat of the plains became unbearable, the administration simply moved up the hill. The mock-Tudor houses and English-style gardens were a deliberate recreation of England in the Shan Hills.

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