Kochi king's palace in Kerala being beautified

Tripunithura /Kochi, Mar 11 (ANI): Special masons and experts are on their way to Kochi to give a restoration touch to an erstwhile palace used by Kochi Kings.

The magnificent hill palace at Thripunithura in Kerala's Ernakulam district was once the headquarters of the Kochi Royal family. It is also houses a large archaeological museum in Kerala.

Officials said that approximately 70 million rupees would be spent at the restoration work and the palace is expected to be ready by this month end.

"Restoration work in the Hill Palace museum is going on smoothly. We are concentrating on other important buildings including the main museum building, the heritage museum building etc." said P.K. Gopi, Registrar, Centre for Heritage Studies, Thripunithura Hill Palace.

The palace is surrounded by beautiful gardens and the authorities said that attractive lights and some fountains would be placed to add more zing to it. The 52 acres of land near the palace is surrounded by terraced land with ponds, fountains and lawns.

"After the completion of the projects, we are going to introduce one important programme, tourist package programme starting from Hill Palace. And it will be an attraction to the general public and mostly public form north that is tourist from the northern area, we are also looking for tourist from abroad also." added Gopi.

The palace-turned museum displays around 14 categories of exhibits including paintings, murals, sculptures in stone and plaster of paris, manuscripts, inscriptions and carvings. About 200 antique pottery and ceramic vases from China and Japan and other antiques of tombstone, hood stone and others are also displayed in the museum. The museum also houses a gallery of contemporary art.

The palace is said to have been built in 1865 and its complex consists of 49 buildings in the traditional architectural style, spreading across in 54 acres. The complex has an archaeological museum, a heritage museum, a deer park, a pre-historic park and a children's park. By Juhan Samuel (ANI)