Heritage · 7 min read

The High Range Club: Hats, Railway Carriages and a Century of Planters

Founded by the tea planters in 1909, the High Range Club in Munnar is one of the last colonial clubs of South India, where retiring planters still hang up their hats above the bar. Its history, traditions and place in the story of Munnar.

By GK Global, Adimali, Munnar · Trails & Tales by GK

On the road out of Munnar towards Devikulam, behind a hedge and a gate, a low, rambling building with a red roof sits among lawns and trees beside the river. This is the High Range Club, founded by the tea planters more than a century ago, and still one of the most atmospheric buildings in the hills.

A club for the planters

The planters of the High Range began meeting at a Gymkhana Club in 1905, on the ground that is now the golf course. In 1909, with a loan of Rs 2,500 from the Kanan Devan Hills Produce Company, they set up the High Range Club, and its building was completed the next year. It was one of the few residential planters' clubs, where planters from distant estates could stay when they came to town. It was electrified early, and telephones were installed in 1916.

The club was the social centre of the European planting community. Here planters met for sports, dinners, dances and Christmas and New Year celebrations, and the club's rules, dress code and customs reflected the colonial society of the time. Nearby stood the Masonic Lodge Heather and, on the hill at Old Munnar, Christ Church. (Read about the early European settlers.)

Hats above the bar

The club's most famous tradition is the hat wall. A planter who has been a resident member for thirty years may hang his hat in the bar. The first to do so was W. O. Milne. Today, about eighty hats, each marked with its owner's initials, hang there. By tradition, retiring planters are hoisted up by their friends to hang their hats themselves.

Another relic links the club to Munnar's lost railway. Munnar's Kundala Valley light railway was crippled by the great flood of 1924; after it was finally abandoned (the club's own history gives 1932), one of its first-class carriages was brought to the club's grounds and used as a bar. (Read our history of Munnar.)

Floods, power stations and change

The great flood of 1924 damaged the club's grounds and library. In the 1930s, cottages were built at the club for the engineers and contractors building the Pallivasal hydroelectric project, Kerala's first; they later became guest rooms.

The club also reflects the slow changes in Munnar's society. In 1934, the Dewan of Travancore became the club's first member of Indian origin; the first Indian was elected to the club committee in 1958. After the European planters left, Indian managers of the tea companies became the members, and many of the old customs, including the hat tradition and a formal dress code, continue.

The club's ground also features in one of Munnar's saddest stories. On 7 November 1984, when a helicopter landed near the club, children from the nearby school ran to see it, and the footbridge over the river collapsed. (Read our remembrance of the children.)

Today

The High Range Club remains a private club, with membership drawn mainly from the planting companies, but it also offers rooms to visitors. It has a 9-hole golf course, tennis, squash, billiards, a library and a dining room in period style. Visitors should respect its dress code and rules, and contact the club in advance.