Bastion Bungalow

Bastion Bungalow is a Dutch-era house on Napier Street in Fort Kochi, built on the curved wall of an old fort bastion. The Ernakulam District Heritage Museum fills the building and is open Tuesday to Sunday, shut on Mondays. Hours are 9am to 1pm and 2pm to 4.30pm.

Maps, old documents and paintings trace the region’s trade with Romans, Greeks, Jews, Chinese and Arabs. A reconstructed Dutch kitchen has a heavy oven and copper and brass pots. Old cannons and high fortification walls stand in the grounds. The museum also holds talks, film screenings and workshops, many tied to the Kochi-Muziris Biennale. Mind the lunch break from 1pm to 2pm.

The Portuguese built Fort Manuel early in the 16th century. The Dutch captured Kochi in 1663 and began pulling the fort down, leaving only its northernmost bastion. The bungalow went up on that bastion in the last quarter of the 17th century, and one dating puts it at 1667. When the British destroyed the fort walls in 1806, they left the bungalow standing. The State Archaeology Department declared it a protected monument in 1999, and the museum opened in 2016. Stories say secret tunnels run beneath it, but none have been found.