Ooty: The Nilgiris Documentation Centre (NDC), an NGO here, has called for setting up Stone House Heritage Committee to better conserve the Stone House here, the first ever modern building to have come up in the hills in early 1800s.
Submitting a memorandum to the Nilgiris district administration on Wednesday coinciding with World Heritage Day, Mr D. Venugopal, director of NDC, said that Stone House in Ooty, which houses the Government Arts College, is next only in importance to Fort St George in Chennai in the heritage buildings of Tamil Nadu.
Stone House was the first building of the British Empire in Ooty. How John Sullivan, the collector of Coimbatore in early 1800s who ventured to the hills then, managed to build it is a mystery and a miracle. That it has survived to this day more or less in the same form is yet another miracle, he noted. Sir Thomas Munro, the Patron-Governor of South India stayed in Stone House for two nights in 1826. Missionary scholars like Rev.G.U.Pope had taught in Stone House, he said.
For over 70 years, half of India was administered for nine months from Stone House. Viceroys and Governors had sat in council in Stone House, he noted.
After Independence, Stone House became a temple of learning, as the Government Arts College in Ooty was opened in Stone House in 1955.
The real credit for opening the college here must go to the then chief minister K. Kamaraj who overruled all objections and the grand old statesman Rajaji who fully supported the cause, he explained.
There cannot be a more important heritage in Nilgiris than Stone House in Ooty. Stone House deserves to be celebrated, promoted and preserved in this bicentenary year of modern Nilgiris, he said.
