Qualla: Colombo Lighthouse

Colombo Lighthouse: Introduction

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dan arndt, CC BY-SA 4.0. Every 4th of February, guns thunder at the base of the Colombo Lighthouse. Twenty-five rounds, one for each year of tradition stretched back to 1948, when sailors of the Ceylon Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve fired a 15-gun salute at Galle Face Green to mark the first Independence Day. The lighthouse itself was not yet built then - it arrived in 1952, opened by Prime Minister D.S. Senanayake, the man who had steered Ceylon to sovereignty. Built to replace the Old Colombo Lighthouse whose beam had been swallowed by the growing city, this concrete tower with four stone lions at its base was meant to guide ships into one of the Indian Ocean's busiest harbors. Instead, it became something stranger: a military landmark, a restricted monument, and finally, thanks to the construction of Colombo Port City, a lighthouse stranded on dry land.

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Image: Dan arndt | CC BY-SA 4.0

Colombo Lighthouse: Light Above the Harbor

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rehman, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Colombo Lighthouse stands 29 meters tall on a concrete base that adds another 12 meters of elevation at Galbokka Point, south of the Port of Colombo along the marine drive. It replaced the Old Colombo Lighthouse, a Victorian-era clock tower whose navigational light had been r...

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Image: Rehman | CC BY-SA 4.0

Colombo Lighthouse: The Guns That Speak for a Nation

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rehman, CC BY-SA 4.0. The saluting battery at the lighthouse base holds a history more tangled than the lighthouse itself. The tradition began modestly: a 15-gun salute on 4 February 1948. When the Royal Ceylon Navy formed and acquired its first warship, HMCyS Vijaya, the salute grew to 25 rounds, fir...

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Image: Rehman | CC BY-SA 4.0

Colombo Lighthouse: Behind the Security Fence

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rehman, CC BY-SA 4.0. As the Sri Lankan Civil War escalated, the lighthouse disappeared behind security cordons. Its location - directly across the street from the Naval Headquarters at SLNS Parakrama and within the restricted zone surrounding the Port of Colombo - placed it in the most sensitive secu...

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Image: Rehman | CC BY-SA 4.0

Colombo Lighthouse: A Lighthouse Without a Shore

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rehman, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 2021, the Independence Day gun salute was fired not from the lighthouse battery but from SLNS Samudura, a naval vessel. The reason was literal: the Colombo Port City project, a massive land reclamation effort, had pushed the coastline seaward, leaving the Colombo Lighthouse la...

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Image: Rehman | CC BY-SA 4.0