Mampitiya Walawwa

Mampitiya Walawwa stands on Raja Veediya in Kandy, a few hundred metres from the Temple of the Tooth Relic. It is one of the old elite residences associated with that street. Local tradition counts it among eighteen walawwas that stood within Kandy town during the reign of Sri Wickrama Rajasinha (1798-1815).

The Mampitiya family's own record reaches back further. In 1721, under King Weeraparakrama Narendrasinha, a Mampitiye Ralahami held the rank of Korale. The family's standing rose again when King Kirthi Sri Rajasinghe took Mampitiye Dugganna Unnanse, daughter of the Mampitiye Disawe, as a Yakadadoliya consort; she is said to have borne him two sons and six daughters. One son, Mampitiye Wasala Bandara, is remembered locally as a Kandyan prince beheaded in 1812 on a charge of conspiring against Sri Wickrama Rajasinha, an account that survives in local histories but is not otherwise corroborated.

After the British conquest of 1815, the walawwa was repaired and used as a clubhouse and entertainment venue. Following independence in 1948 it became a hotel, and it now operates as the Royal Bar and Hotel. The frontage and interior have been altered to suit that use, but the building keeps the scale and basic form of an urban walawwa within the modern city.