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After completing with Dutch Square, take a slow hike uphill to visit another historical landmark – St Paul's Church situated on top of St Paul's Hill. It is just a gentle slope and there are three ways to go up this hill. One of them is using the staircase, right beside Cheng Ho Admiral’s Gallery. This stair will elevate you by about 10 meters, then take right turn circulating the hill until this passage meets another staircase path. At this point, a white statue is visible with the background of white tower and some part of ruined walls. If you take the staircase on your right and descend down, it will lead you to the second passage entrance to get up to St Paul’s Hill. At the foothill, it is a small red door way in-between Architecture Museum and Islamic Museum.  However, if you are coming with children and elderly folks, it will be advisable to use the third passage, situated just behind the gateway of Porta De Santiago. Along this staircase passage, it was fixed with hand-held railing to facilitate your hike. 

From any of the passages uphill, reach out for the church once you arrive at the summit. There are some spots that you shall take a good look at. It will even be better if you have prior knowledge of their history so that your visit will be more meaningful in chronological order.

The four walls of ruined church occupied much larger than a typical size of a Malaysian house. Appearing empty rooted once you enter, the floor is under direct sunlight. It was originally a small Portuguese chapel. Built by Captain Duarte Coelho in 1521 and it was called 'Nosa Senhora' which means 'Our Lady of the Hill'. After handling over to 'Society of Jesus', it was enlarged and renovated as two-storey in 1556, and later named 'Annunciation'. A tower was added in 1590. 


In 1641, Dutch took over and renamed it to St Paul's Church and used it for 112 years until Christ Church was established in 1753. Since then, Dutch had turned this place into their graveyard. If you walk inside, there are several old tombstones of Dutch and Portuguese which bear silent testimony of their final resting place.


During British era, St Paul's Church somehow lost its tower. Instead, British constructed a lighthouse infront. Since then, it was not used as a worship place but turned into a warehouse of gunpowder. A flagpole was erected and British renamed it to 'FlagStaff Hill'. However, the name never last, the flag pole was removed and the church was abandoned.
 
Walking towards the end of this historic church, there is a fenced up area on the ground. This spot was the open grave of Saint Francis Xavier for 9 months (22 Mar - 11 Dec 1553) before he was placed at the final resting place in Goa India. St Francis Xavier was a regular visitor to this church and pioneering Catholic missionary work in South East Asia.

Right in front of the white light tower, there is a statue of St Francis Xavier dressed up in a priest's attire. It was built in 1952 to commemorate the passing of the saint. If you observe carefully, his right arm was missing. The original statue was constructed with both arms but somehow during the consecration ceremony,  a casuarina branch fell and broke off his right arm which is shown as the remain today.

Take some moment to stand on top of St Paul's Hill, enjoy the skyline of Melaka. The view from top is simply breathtaking. The strong breeze is comforting and relaxing. I do not feel like getting down!

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