Fort Emmanuel

Fort Emmanuel, or Fort Manuel, was raised by the Portuguese at what is now Fort Kochi beach and named after King Manuel I of Portugal. In September 1503 the Raja of Kochi allowed Afonso de Albuquerque to build it by the sea, and it was christened on 1 October that year, making it the first European fort in Asia. It stood for the alliance between Kochi and Portugal.

The first fort was square with gun bastions at the corners, its walls made of double rows of coconut trunks packed with earth and ringed by a wet ditch. It was strengthened in 1538, with the Portuguese town, including St Francis Church, behind it. The Dutch captured Kochi in 1663 and the British in 1795, and by 1806 most of the walls had been pulled down. A partly restored gun battery and fragments of rampart survive along the beach.