madras week this particular sunday morning meant a trip to the santhome cathedral so out they came with umbrellas because it was raining to know all about the stories hidden in the streets of santhome the walk traced all that factored in the making of santhome into a settlement much earlier before the formalised madras came into existence santhome was back then a trading port for the portuguesethe trail titled santhome lost and found was organised as part of the times of indias namma chennai chanceyeyilla campaign and was curated by roshini ganesh from madras inherited in 1498 the portuguese moved to madras with a few armenian merchants who decided to set up their shops here in the early 1500s by 1522 they had established themselves and the first santhome basilica was built in 1523 over the next 60 years to fend off attacks from other colonial powers the forts were razed and built many times over informed roshini before the trail beganthe walk also trailed the recent establishments that have sprung up in place of the old ones and sites that are hidden away or lost forever m gogulakannan a trail participant had brought along his 10yearold daughter for the walk i liked how educative the entire trail has been as a chennaiite i never knew so much and i am glad my daughter got to learn about the history of santhome the best part was every place we visited was explained to us with old and present pictures which made it all the more interestinganother trail enthusiast indrani chakraverty had come with her husband we moved to chennai last year before that we only used to talk about the humid and sultry weather of chennai it has been a great learning experience for us as outsiders to know so much about the city who knew there is a museum inside the santhome church it never shows up on google maps to my surprise i also came to know that the walls of santhome church used to be open earlier a 24room bungalow gailee house and its replaced sloping windows marine view house of o thanikachalam chettiarleith castle lost to modernisation and encroachment roshini along with the enthusiastic group of trail participantsit was here in santhome that once upon a time there used to be a big estate called the leith castle estate it is surrounded by north south and centre leith castle streets which gives us an idea of how huge the area used to be the property taken over little by little is a shadow of what it used to be earlier said roshinihow parrys corner got its name leith castle home of thomas parry delisted from the cmda listing of heritage buildingsprecinctsparrys corner is named after thomas parry a welsh merchant parrys first house was in santhome in place of the airtel office on santhome high road now there used to be a post office nimmo street had garden houses and one such garden