Registered with the Registrar of Newspapers for India under R.N.I 53640/91

Vol. XXXI No. 6, July 1-15, 2021

Heritage Watch

A school changes hands, and name

The way the media, especially social media, reported on it, you would imagine that the Seetha Kingston School was trying to usurp temple land spanning 44 grounds. The truth was of course otherwise – the school and the temple having failed to come to terms on expiry of the previous lease had gone to court and when the terms offered at the end of it proved unviable, it was the school management that surrendered the land. The Government then took over the premises on behalf of the HR&CE Department and will run the school. With that the connect the Calavala Cunnan Chetty charities had with the property for nearly a century has come to an end.

Our OLD (actually just 13 years ago) is artist V. Vijayakumar’s pencil sketch of Kingston, the stately house in the centre of the controversy. Our NEW taken a couple of days ago by Ramanujar Moulana shows the building still looking good. But as to what its fate will eventually be we don’t know, for the Government does not look at heritage the way we do. To begin with, they have already changed the name Seetha Kingston to what you can see in the board above. Why the name could not be retained is a mystery.

More details can be had from the article “A School named Seetha Kingston”.

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