Udayagiri Fort near Nagercoil

The Udaygiri fort (உதயகிரி கோட்டை) is located at a distance of 14 km from Nagercoil in Kanyakumari District. The fort is situated on the Thiruvananthapuram-Nagercoil National highway at Puliyoorkurichi.

The fort was the most important military barracks of the Travancore rulers, when Padmanabhapuram was their capital. It is built of massive granite blocks around an isolated, 260 feet (79 m) high enclosing an area of almost 90 acres. It is renovated about AD 1600. The fort is said to have been destroyed by the King Raja Raja Chola.

The fort is rebuilt during the reign of Marthanda Varma, Venad King during 1741-44 under the supervision of Eustachius De Lannoy, a flemish naval commander of the Dutch East India Company, who later served as the Chief of the Travancore Army.

 
Vattakottai (Circular Fort)
 
The tombs of the Dutch Admiral Eustachius De Lannoy, (in whose honour the fort was once called Dillanai Kottai — De Lennoy's Fort), and of his wife and son could be seen inside a partly ruined chapel in the fort. De Lannoy's body was buried within the fort and a chapel was built at his burial site . De Lannoy's tomb in the fort is marked out by a stone cross planted on the top, with the inscription in both Tamil and Latin. His wife and son were buried by his side.

Recently, officials of the Department of Archaeology found an underground tunnel within the fort. Presently, the fort has been turned into a bio-diversity park by the Tamilnadu forest department, with sites of historical importance, such as De Lannoy's tomb, remaining as protected archaeological sites under the Archaeological Department of India.

The adjoining areas of the fort are home to deer, ducks, birds and over 100 varieties of trees.
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