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Malacca ~ Stadhuys & Christ Church
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historical Stadthuys dominates Malacca's renowned Dutch Square, or also
known as the Red Square because of the crimson coloured old buildings there.
Also located at the Square is Christ Church, the former Dutch Reformed
Church of Malacca, where the pious Dutch people of the town had long before
often congregated. An example of Dutch
architecture, The building once a centre of the Dutch administration in
Melaka, housed the secretary's office, one detached bakery, courtyard,
warehouse and a prison. In its heydays, the Stadthuy's
was situated within the walls of Malacca fort. During the Dutch rule of
Malacca, the Stadthuys, like all the other Dutch administration buildings in
Southeast Asia, was painted white. When the town became a British colony,
the British in 1911, decided to paint the Stadthuys and the Christ Church a
salmon red. The actual reasons as to why these buildings were painted red by
the British is now lost in time but legends and theories are abundant.
A famous landmark, the church bears all the hallmarks of 18th-century Dutch architecture: a rectangular plan, massive walls, red granite plinths, and Dutch roof tiles. Laid out in a simple rectangle, the ceiling rises to 40 feet (12 m) and is spanned by wooden beams, each carved from a single tree. The roof is covered with Dutch tiles and the walls were raised using Dutch bricks built on local laterite blocks then coated with Chinese plaster. The floors of the church are paved with granite blocks originally used as ballast for merchant ships. The hand-made pews are original (dated some 200 years), and so are the windows. Standing at 42-feet in height, it is the oldest protestant church in Malaysia.
The church is notable for some unusual objects in the interior The church
bell is inscribed with the date 1698, suggesting that it was from another
place and used for another purpose before the completion of the church. Since it is unlikely that the
highly religious Dutch would have used Catholic tombstones inside a
Protestant church, historians surmise that they were installed there by the
British.
There are some interesting translations of the tombstones of which two in
Armenian, reads as follows: "I, Jacob, grandson of Shamier, an Armenian of a respectable family whose name I keep, was born in Persia near Inefa, where my parents now forever sleep. Fortune brought me to distant Malacca, which my remains in bondage to keep. Separated from the world on 7th July 1774 A.D. at the age of twenty-nine, my mortal remains were deposited in this spot of the ground which I purchased." (Of course, since the tombstone was moved, it is not the spot of the Armenian's grave).
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Stadhuys
Situated
at Laksamana Road, beside the Christ Church, the port-red theme extends to
the other buildings around the Town Square and the old clock tower. The old
Melaka Clock Tower also an important landmark in Melaka, was constructed
during the Dutch occupation of Melaka sometime after 1641. 
The
building now houses the History and Ethnography Museum. On display are fine
traditional bridal costumes and relics which will take a couple of hours to
read your way through the detailed explanations of Melaka's past - The
Museum of Ethnography endeavours to exhibit, but in a rather dry and
lifeless manner, the various cultures of the multiethnic people of the town.
Christ Church
