VIDEO SUMMARY:
- Christ Church is much more than a Dutch-era building. Its changing names and identities reflect the Portuguese, Dutch, British and modern eras of Melaka.
- The most fascinating history is literally under your feet: granite paving stones brought from Europe as ship ballast, along with tombstones connected to the earlier St. Paul’s Church on the hill.
- The famous red buildings of Dutch Square weren’t always red. The familiar terracotta colour was added much later, during the British period.
- The biggest surprise for me was how welcoming the church is to visitors. What initially looked like a series of closed gates turned out to have a dedicated tourist entrance—and a remarkable amount of history waiting inside.
A Church I Almost Never Went Inside
I’ve spent a lot of time exploring the history of Melaka, but somehow I’d never actually gone inside Christ Church.
Part of that was deliberate. When I’m carrying a GoPro, I don’t particularly like walking into a church, mosque or temple and treating it like a tourist attraction if people are worshipping there. I’d rather stay outside unless it’s obvious that visitors are welcome.
And Christ Church had given me exactly the wrong impression.
Every time I’d passed by, I’d seen closed gates. So I assumed that meant, essentially, don’t go in.
Then I noticed something I’d somehow missed: there is a dedicated entrance specifically for visitors, complete with opening hours, historical information and even a souvenir shop.
That completely changed my understanding of the place. The church isn’t merely tolerating visitors; it is set up to receive them.
The Date on the Front Isn’t Really the Date to Remember
The front of the church proudly displays 1753, the year construction was finally completed.
But the more interesting date is 1741.
That was the centenary of the Dutch capture of Melaka from the Portuguese in 1641, and the church was constructed as part of the commemoration of a century of Dutch rule.
The problem was that building it took much longer than expected. So although 1741 explains why the church was being built, 1753 explains when the building was finally finished.
And that distinction turns out to be important throughout Melaka’s history: the dates on buildings don’t necessarily tell the whole story.
Look at the Building as a Dutch Object
Walking around the exterior before going inside gave me a much better appreciation for just how substantial this building is.
It’s remarkably plain and solid. Thick walls, simple rectangular proportions and very little decorative fuss. From the side, it almost looks like one enormous brick-and-stone block.
That simplicity is part of what makes it impressive.
And then there’s the famous red colour.
Today, the terracotta-red buildings around Dutch Square are practically synonymous with Melaka. But that wasn’t their original appearance. The buildings were originally white.
There are several stories about how they eventually became red, including the familiar tale about betel-nut juice staining the walls. Another explanation points to something much less colourful but perhaps more plausible: red laterite soil and dust being splashed onto the white surfaces and eventually staining them.
Either way, the red Dutch Square that feels so quintessentially Melaka is actually a relatively late layer in the story.
The History Gets More Interesting Once You Go Inside
The interior of Christ Church is impressive in a completely different way.
The ceilings are enormous, and the great wooden beams running across the building are particularly striking. According to what I had read, each beam was made from a single tree rather than being assembled from smaller pieces.
Then there are the granite paving stones.
These stones came from Europe and were reportedly carried to Melaka as ship ballast. Ships travelling from Europe needed heavy material to stabilize themselves, so construction stone could effectively make the journey as ballast and then be unloaded and put to practical use once the ships arrived.
It’s one of those small details that suddenly makes the building feel connected to the much larger world of Dutch maritime trade.
And Then You Look Down
But the most fascinating part of the church may be the thing you almost don’t notice.
The floor contains large stone tomb coverings.
These are reminders of an older tradition in which prominent people could be buried beneath the floors of churches, with large stones marking the burial places above them.
Even more intriguing are the older tombstones preserved toward the back of the church.
These were associated with the original St. Paul’s Church on the hill. As that church fell into ruin and its interior was exposed to the weather, the tombstones themselves were vulnerable to destruction. They were subsequently brought down and preserved here.
So you can stand inside Christ Church and quite literally look at pieces of another church—and another period of Melaka’s history.
That’s the sort of thing I love finding.
The Names Tell the Story
By the time I left, I was thinking less about Christ Church as a single building and more about it as a historical object that has repeatedly changed meaning.
Today it’s Christ Church Melaka.
Under British rule it became an Anglican church and acquired that name.
Before that, under the Dutch, it was associated with St. Paul’s.
And the original St. Paul’s Church wasn’t even this building. It was the church on the hill.
And before that, the church on the hill itself had another Portuguese-era name.
Suddenly, the confusing collection of names starts to make sense. They’re not simply different names for the same thing. They’re clues to different periods of Melaka’s history.
One Building as a Window onto Melaka
That’s probably the biggest thing I took away from this visit.
You don’t necessarily need to find one enormous historical monument that explains everything about Melaka. You can take almost any surviving piece of the city and use it as a lens.
Christ Church gives you the Dutch period.
But following its history takes you backward to the Portuguese.
Following the people and institutions connected with it takes you further into the earlier history of the city.
And then the British came, changed the church again, and eventually the whole area became part of the modern tourist landscape we see today.
So the building itself almost becomes an idea rather than simply a structure.
Different buildings. Different names. Different meanings. But one continuous stream of history.
And that’s what makes exploring Melaka so rewarding: sometimes you don’t have to go looking for the big story. You can just stand in front of one old building and start pulling on the threads.
“You can take one building and then just think about it through all the various periods of time in Melaka’s history.”
“The church itself is almost more like an idea that has flowed throughout history—different buildings, different names, different meanings to the different people that lived here in each era.”
A Practical Note for Visitors
If, like me, you’ve ever walked past Christ Church and assumed the closed gates meant visitors weren’t supposed to enter, take another look.
The visitor entrance is through the side with the souvenir shop, and there are clearly posted visiting hours. When I went, there were no services taking place and the interior was wonderfully quiet.
For me, that made the visit much more than simply seeing another famous Melaka building from the outside.
It was a chance to finally step inside—and discover that some of the city’s history is literally built into the walls and lying beneath the floor.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
Welcome to a busy, very busy Friday morning here in Melaka, Malaysia. And I decided to take the time this morning to finally visit the building that you see behind me, the historic Christ Church of Melaka. And despite my strong interest in history, I’ve never gone into that church until now because I’m a little bit hesitant to go into temples, churches, mosques, running one of my GoPros, you know, like treating a house of worship as a tourist attraction. So, I tend to look at them from the outside. I’m a little bit hesitant to go in unless there’s an obvious opening where I’m not bothering anyone. But then a couple of days ago, I realized something quite fascinating that they’re very very open to visitors. I often noticed all the gates on the outside are closed. All right, let me get past the tri and you can see it more clearly. Like this is what I always saw, you know, closed gate, closed gate, closed gate, closed gate. So I thought, oh, they they don’t want people going inside. And maybe a lot of other visitors were also deterred by these gates and thought, “Oh, okay. Oh, I won’t go in there.” But if you shift your view right over here, there is a dedicated entrance for visitors to the church. Look at that. Like there’s signs everywhere. Entrance to the Christ Church of Melaka has some of the history there on a sign. All kinds of welcoming signs giving you the hours. And there’s a souvenir store. So as you go into the church, you pass through a souvenir shop and then go in. So they really, really, really encourage visitors. So if you’re coming to Melaka and you’re a little bit hesitant, don’t be, definitely go inside this church and check it out. They will they will welcome you with open arms. The church building itself obviously is fascinating and I think we’re going to see a lot of interesting things when we go inside. So, it’s worth visiting just for the building, but I tend to approach these places more like a window onto Melaka’s history. And I think that that’s a theme I’m going to try to develop here that almost everything you see in Melaka, you can use it as a lens for learning about all of Melaka’s history. Like you can use this church and its history as a window onto the overall history of Melaka. So that that’s what I’m going to be focusing on. And yeah, we’re standing right in the middle of Dutch Square. So I guess we can begin there. Just to give the context, there is the famous Stadthuys built by the Dutch of course the administrative building for the Dutch authorities and the famous clock tower is right there. The fountain here. Everybody is out today exploring Melaka, enjoying all the food and snacks over there, taking selfies, getting on the trishaws, going out for rides. So we are right in the heart of historic Melaka right here. The classic red color that you see that Melaka is known for particularly here in Dutch Square. You can see all these buildings including the Christ Church and these buildings here all sharing the same terracotta red color.
Let’s start with the most obvious bit of history. You can see it right on the front of the church there says Christ Church Melaka and the date 1753. And that’s a very important date because that is the date when the church was completed and when it opened. But that’s not the most significant date because this church was built to commemorate 100 years of Dutch rule in Melaka. The Dutch defeated the Portuguese in 1641. And then in 1741, 100 years later, the Dutch decided to build a church as a to commemorate 100 years of Dutch rule. But then the church was so difficult to build, it took 12 years to finish. Therefore, you see the date 1753 is when the church was finally completed. But as I said, the the important date is actually 1741 celebrating 100 years of Dutch rule. So underneath the under the Dutch administration, this was St. Paul’s Church. And then moving on through time, not to confuse you or overwhelm you with names, eventually the British took over after the Dutch and they changed it to an Anglican church and they called it Christ Church Melaka. Before I go inside any building, I always like to go around it from the outside first just to sort of get the lay of the land. So I’m going to see if I can walk around the church building and we’ll see if any other ideas that I’ve gleaned from my reading pop up. Almost everything I say, you can preface it with, you know, according to what I read, you know, according to things I found on the internet and then I might give you some information, but don’t treat me as a historical authority about any of this. You’ll have to look it up for yourself to confirm, oh, what Doug said there, that is true. Oh, he’s wrong about that. But yeah, don’t don’t trust me 100%. But these are things that I read. And another thing I read was that the Dutch often called it the lower church with a Dutch word. They didn’t call it in English, of course. I can’t remember the Dutch word, but the church at the top of the hill, which we can’t see from here. It’s blocked by the Stadthuys, but it’s up there somewhere. They called that church the upper church. And then when this one was built, the new St. Paul’s Church, they called it the lower church.
And I read that the bell up there actually predates the church. There’s a date on engraved on that bell that is earlier than the construction of the church. I haven’t found anything about exactly where the bell came from, but it was repurposed. It was used somewhere else and then they moved it here. And I read that that weather vane at the very top that was added by the British. That wasn’t part of the original design. And there are some other features were added by the British, but I don’t know what those are. So, let’s see how far we can get down this way. And if we can see anything interesting from the side. One thing that strikes me about the church here, especially here from the side, is just how solid it looks. It’s just a big brick. I read that it is exactly twice as long as it is wide. And to my eye anyway, because I have a Dutch heritage, it strikes me as Dutch because I think of the Dutch as plain kind of simple people. So you’re not seeing a lot of fancy architecture and curly cues. This is just a big block. It just has such a solid feeling to it. Thick walls, perfectly rectangular. Proportions perfect, exactly twice as long as it is wide. And look at these tall window frames. The door here, just one door on this side. Again, there isn’t a lot of fancy architecture here, but it is an impressive building. Just as I said, it has that solid feeling, and you can impress your friends with a little factoid. It’s commonly repeated, so you may have heard it already, that this red color, this terracotta red is not original under the Dutch. When the Dutch built this church and when they built the Stadthuys over here and all the other buildings you see, they were white. So, the original and for most of their history, all of these buildings were white on when they were originally built. And then it wasn’t until the British in the early 1900s, they made the decision to repaint everything terracotta red. And some of the lore that I heard was because of betel nut juice that people were chewing betel nuts and spitting on the walls. And so they were adding this horrible red discoloration and they kept having to repaint and and fix because of all the betel nut juice. But that may be just myth and legend. I’m not sure because I also read that it wasn’t betel nut juice that was the problem. It was actually just natural laterite because the natural laterite brick that all of these building foundations and walls were made out of is red. And then during the rainy season, the a lot of this red dust and clay would gather on the streets and then passing horse carriages would splash this red laterite mud and dust up onto the walls. And then the laterite would bleed through the white plaster. And so that’s why the buildings kept having these unsightly red stains. It wasn’t because of betel nuts. It was because of the natural laterite and that’s why the British eventually decided to repaint everything red to save them a lot of maintenance hassle and that’s where the famous red square Dutch square look comes from. Originally all of these buildings would have been pure white. Something else I noticed particularly while looking at the church from the front is that it gives the impression that it has this big arched roof and attic section, you know, all the way the length of the building. But I think this is just a facade. So it looks like it has like an elaborate archway and then a big upper floor at the very top, but it doesn’t. This is just a a facade curved archway and it gives that impression. The view from the front again. And I noticed the building beside it also has kind of a facade, but then it does have an A-frame arched roof there. So, I’m not entirely sure about the church. So, what I’m going to do is climb up here. Maybe we can get a look at it. This is a very popular spot for fancy selfies. People take pictures up here, as you can see. But maybe I can go up there with my GoPro and get a view of the church from up there before I go inside.
Can’t quite get an angle on the the roof of the church, but no, there does seem to be I can just make out an edge over there. So maybe there is like a a pointed roof, but that is definitely a facade on the front like the elaborate curved archway. It’s not like that when you get to the actual roof. I think it’s much planer than that. Probably looks exactly like that building on the left.
Time to go inside, see the interior, and see what other historical connections we can make.
So, here are the the hours, which I suppose are important to notice. 9:00 a.m. to 4:30, Tuesday to Saturday, lunch break from 1 to 2. And then Sunday, of course, they have restricted hours because they have services. In the morning
I’m inside the church itself right now and it is absolutely quiet in here. It’s like dead silence. So, I feel kind of reluctant to speak up, but there are no services going on here. There’s no one here performing prayers or worship of any kind. So, I can talk a little bit and point out some of the things of interest that I remember from my reading. But here is the interior as a whole. very impressive space, very high ceilings and one interesting thing is those timbers going across each one is massive and from what I read everyone is made from a single tree. So each beam there represents a complete tree and they were not made with any joinery. It’s just like a single beam made from one tree, which is quite impressive.
and along the floor here along the edges and here in the back from again according to what I read these are granite paving stones and they were actually brought here from the Netherlands and they were put into the ships as ballast when the you know the ships were coming from Europe to Melaka for you know trading and spices and other goods they needed ballast and you know they could kill two birds with one stone by using construction material as ballast and then all of these granite paving stones were unloaded from the ships here in Melaka and used for construction. So in fact these stones come from Europe
and one of the most fascinating parts of the history you can see again underneath your feet. Do you see these big stones here? They’re you can barely make them out because they’re old and worn and they’re the same coloring as the granite paving stones. But these are actually tombstones like tomb coverings. And some of them I think if you go here into the middle aisle I think these are new. So in fact this is a grave site and churches from that time I don’t know much about this but they had vault burial vaults under the ground inside the church and then so the bodies of you know wealthy people people of note they were they would be buried inside the church under the ground here and then these large paving stones tombstones would be laid over top of them. So, I think this was, you know, I I haven’t read all of that. I can’t. So, I don’t know who is buried here or how many people were buried underneath there. But then there’s another quite large one up here. Again, this is a essentially a flat tombstone and the bodies would be buried underneath, you know, in the in the vaults underneath the floor here. But here in the back, the ones I pointed out originally that look a little bit different, like there’s one right here, and there’s a whole series of them underneath the chairs here. My understanding is that these were the original tombstones from up on the hill. So, the original St. Paul’s church up there. The roof collapsed. So, the church was left in ruins, open to the elements, and all of these tombstones were on the floor of St. Paul’s Church on the hill. And they were being destroyed, being weathered away by the constant rain. And as a preservation effort, they were moved from the hill, from St. Paul’s Church on the Hill and then brought down here. So, these were originally in a different church, St. Paul’s Church up on the hill. And then of I think the bodies of the people are still there. They’re still under the ground in the vaults of the original St. Paul’s Church up on the hill. a lot of the vaults had collapsed and it would would have been impossible to move the skeletal remains along with the the tombstones. So they they left the bodies there, the skeletal remains and they took these flat tombstones and brought them down here and preserved them in this church. So you can see how many of them there’s a whole bunch of them. And I don’t know if they have actual records of who was buried underneath all of these tombstones originally. I don’t know if they know the names and the dates and their histories, but yeah, there’s a lot of history in here. It’s probably the most fascinating part of this church and St. Paul’s Church up on the hill as well.
I was hoping we could see some of the exposed wall like underneath the plaster, but it’s all wellmaintained and everything is still nicely plastered. So, we can’t see the underlying construction. But again, my understanding is that the foundations here of these walls is all laterite, very very thick walls. big laterite blocks stacked on one another and then they are capped with Dutch bricks towards the top. I don’t know where the laterite ends and the bricks begin but there’s both original laterite used in the construction and then the Dutch bricks on top of the laterite something like that. Anyway, and I remember reading that these pews are very old. So, these are some original pews and they’re over 200 years old, I think I read. So, that’s really kind of fascinating.
There’s a balcony back there and you can see the ladder going up. Of course, that’s blocked off to visitors like me, but it’ll be nice to go up that ladder and get up into the the bell tower. I don’t think I’ve ever heard bells ringing in Melaka. I have no memory of hearing church bells. Maybe I just never noticed, but I don’t think it’s ever rung. But maybe it is. I don’t know. It would be cool to go up there and see the original bell.
A last look at the church from the outside just as I’m leaving. Very interesting little tour on the inside. I was glad to see all of that in real life. All the things that I had read about the granite blocks, you know, the granite paving stones carried over here from the Netherlands as ballast and ships, the big gravestones on the floor. Fascinating part of history. And I think maybe the main takeaway for this place, you can think of it in terms of the names. Like right now it’s called the Christ Church Melaka. But then you just have to remember, oh originally when it was built it wasn’t even called that. The British renamed it Christ Church when they changed it to an Anglican church, but before that it was a Dutch Christian Reformed Church, St. Paul’s. And the original St. Paul’s church wasn’t even here. The original St. Paul’s would have been up there on what was called St. Paul’s Hill at the time. Our view blocked by the Stadthuys. And even that church going back in time wasn’t originally called St. Paul’s. It was renamed St. Paul’s by the Dutch after the original Portuguese name. And that gets back to what I was talking about how you can take one building and then just think about it through all the various periods of time in Melaka’s history. This church can be like a a lens through which you can see, you know, the flow of the history of Melaka going all the way back to the Melaka Sultanate, the arrival of the Portuguese, then the Dutch, then the British and now of course the modern era of mass tourism. So yeah, this idea. So the church itself is almost more like an idea that has flowed throughout history. different buildings, different names, different meanings to the different people that lived here in each era. So there it is, Christ Church. And as I said, the one really cool thing about it is how open it is to visitors. As I said, just look for the souvenir shop right there, and you enter the church that way. And yeah, they welcome all tourists to come in and visit.