"In 1869, an eccentric Englishman, Edward Croft Greenway Thomas, was appointed as the Vizagapatam District Judge. With his wife, ECG Thomas became the sole resident in the only bungalow on the hill that locals described as Thomas Folley. Judge Thomas wrote about the hill as Kailash Hill and referred to the Kailash Hotel near Simhachalam. At the western extremity of the hill was the Simhachalam Temple complex, from which the hill takes its name today
The bungalow was built and rented to the Judge by the owner of the hill, who was the Maharajah of Vizianagram at that time. Years later, the Maharajah used the building as a Summer Bungalow. Of the view from his bungalow, the good Judge said, “Of the panorama visible from the summit, the sea with the ports of Vizagapatam and Bimlipatam with shipping and passing steamers bound the horizon on one side, and the plains and mountains of the interior the other.”
Judge Thomas joined the Indian Civil Service in 1851 after passing his Tamil and Telugu exams and was posted as Assistant Collector and Magistrate in Coimbatore. On 27 August 1869, he was appointed Judge in Vizagapatam and occupied this position for 13 years. In 1881, Judge Thomas retired from the Civil Service and returned to England, where he continued his passion for amateur engineering feats that he promoted with more persistence than discretion. His deep affection for developing Vizag is contained in books titled ‘Vizagapatam, the Port for the Central Provinces’ in 1877, ‘The Hill Ranges of Southern India Part 5’ in 1876, and ‘Famine and other Indian Topics’ in 1877."
OSM snapshot date: 2023-09-20T00:34:57Z
POI name: Ruins of British Bungalow
POI types: tourism-attraction
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