Groote Kerk (Dutch Reformed Church)

1755 Dutch colonial church near the fort entrance with gravestone-paved floor

The Groote Kerk, completed in 1755 by the Dutch governor of Galle, sits opposite the New Oriental Hotel just inside the main gate of the fort. It is the second oldest Protestant church in Sri Lanka and still in active use by a small Dutch Reformed congregation.

The interior is plain and bright, but the floor is its most extraordinary feature — paved end to end with hundreds of old Dutch grave slabs, some intricately carved with coats of arms, ships, skulls and Bible verses in Dutch. The organ from 1760 still functions; the pulpit, made from a single block of local calamander wood, is a remarkable piece of craftsmanship.

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The floor is paved with the heavy stone tombs of seventeenth and eighteenth century Dutch settlers — moved here from the old cemetery — and the carved wooden pulpit, an ornate piece in calamander wood, was made on the spot by local craftsmen working in Dutch baroque style.