Some of the clay roofing tiles that have been extracted from the old Sneha Bhavan building have sprung a surprise because some of them appear to have been made way back in the 1860s.
Fr. P. O. Varghese, in-charge of the Sneha Bhavan, said one of the tiles was identified as having been made in Mangalore by the Basel Mission Tile Works. The inscription on it said it was patented in 1865. However, he expressed his reservations about the actual age of the tile. Another tile that was taken down from the roof of the old building had the inscription ‘P. Albuquerque, Mangalore 1868’. The Sneha Bhavan building, part of which is being demolished now, was inaugurated on May 26, 1974.
