Sri Lanka’s cosmopolitan, multicultural past figures rich in the history of this newest  property, Tamarind Hill on the outskirts of Galle – a city whose strongly Dutch character belies its history as an ancient global entrepot, a meeting-place for Arabs, Chinese, Greeks, Persians and South Indians, and identified by Victorian scholars with the Biblical port of Tarshish. Tamarind Hill was built as official residence of the Representative of the Peninsular and Orient Steam Navigation Company, the famous ‘P&O Line’, around whose sailings all social and commercial life in British-era Galle revolved – a tall flagpole on the front lawn is a relic of those self-important days.