Visakhapatnam :

Four cast iron cannons, believed to hark back to the British Raj, were unearthed at the Queen Mary’s Girls High School here while excavating the ground to build foundation trenches for a new building on Thursday.

Recently , the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan had allocated a two-room building to the school at an estimated cost of `17.6 lakh, keeping in view the increasing number of girl students. An excavator operator, while digging the trenches at about 6.30am, found the cannons and alerted the officials.

According to Vijjeswarapu Edward Paul, an Intach member and heritage conservationist, the British entered Vizagapatam (present Vizag city) as early as 1682. “Vizagapatam was the Northern Division headquarters of the Madras Army of the English East India Company . A Major General-rank officer headed the Vizag unit. The premises of the school and the surroundings housed an arsenal during the British era. However, in about 1860, the arms were shifted to Madras and Singapore. Some of the arms, which were not worthy enough to be shifted, were left here,” said Edward Paul.

APSSA district project officer T Siva Rama Prasad said more studies will be taken up to explore what is hidden underground on the premises by leveraging advanced methods such as imaging technologies. “These cannons can also be placed along the RK Beach road to create awareness among students and general public about our history ,” said Rama Prasad.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News> City News> Visakhapatnam News / Umamaheshwara Rao / TNN / October 27th, 2017