Manthiri Manai Mansion
Traveling 1 km on the Point Pedro road from the Nallur Kandaswamy Kovil in Jaffna you will come across a an old dilapidated mansion on the left side of the road. This abandoned mansion built with a mixture of colonial and hindu architecture is called the Manthiri Manai in Tamil which translates to Ministers Adobe. Like the Poothathamby Arch which lies about 100 meters before this building, the history of this adobe is lost in time.Number of theories has come up on the history of this mansion. Some believe this mansion as part of the palace of last regional king of Jaffna, King Sangili. As name implies some belive that that this to be a home of a minister of king Sangili.
Tamilnet in a article published in 10 October 2009 plays down on any historical significance of this mansion and states that it was only a chaultry built in early 19th century along with the belfry of the adjacent Chaddai-naathar temple, by a philanthropist of Va’n’naarpa’n’nai of Jaffna. This could be true since its unlikely that any history of a such a magnificent mansion could be lost without trace. Currently this structure has been taken over by the department of archeology with the intention of renovating and restoring this building.
