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Message: <blockquote data-quote="netlife007" data-source="post: 21307858" data-attributes="member: 79514">There was a time when Kollupitiya was known as Baradeniya. It was a beautiful rustic village with coconut gardens and cinnamon trees that grew wild and narrow cart-tracks which connected the few villas and homes here with the rest of the country.  For the purpose of postal services `Colombo 03’ consists of Kollupitiya.  How Baradeniya became Kollupitiya - The year was 1664 and the king was Rajasinghe II whose cruel acts embittered his subjects. Three Kandyan chiefs sought to slay the king and place his 12-year-old son on the throne. One of the conspirators was Udanuwara Ambanwela Appuhamy. When the plot failed, the king had two of the rebel leaders beheaded. However, instead of executing Abanwela Appuhamy, the most feared of the rebels, he handed him over to the Dutch to undergo what he thought would be a more brutal torture. Instead, the Dutch set him free.   Ambanwela Appuhamy took the Dutch name of Van Ry-cloff and built up a good relationship with the Dutch who gave him a large plot of land by the sea where he grew a coconut plantation which soon expanded over the ancestral farms of the natives who dared not complain. They could only retaliate by calling the plantation Kolla-ke-pitiya meaning 'Plundered land'. Today, there is still an area in Kollupitiya that is called Polwatte.</blockquote>

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