The first permanent post office in the country was established by the British in Colombo in 1882, when the country was a crown colony. It was housed in several different locations until the construction of the General Post Office building at 17 Kings Street (now known as Janadhipathi Mawatha), Colombo Fort, opposite the-then Governor’s residence at King’s House (now the President’s House) in 1895. The building was designed by Herbert Frederick Tomalin of the Public Works Department and built by Arasi Marikar Wapchi Marikar. Tomalin (1852-1944) was an English engineer/architect, who migrated to Ceylon from England. Construction commenced on this two-storey Edwardian style building, with the official laying of the foundation stone on 29 August 1891 and was completed in July 1895. It took a workforce of 375, including 180 specialist craftsmen and almost five years to build. The building was constructed in a typical Colonial architectural style.
The ground floor contained the parcel and postage stamp counters, the money order and savings bank counters, the registration counters. The offices of the Postmaster-General, Superintendent of Telegraphs and the Resident Postmaster’s quarters were located on the second floor, together with the Telegraph Department and Telephone Exchange.

The building served not only as the post office but also as the country’s first telegraph and
telephone exchanges. On 21 January 2000 the building was formally recognised by the
Government as an archaeological protected monument in Sri Lanka.

The General Post Office was moved in May 2000, for security reasons during the Civil War to the current Sri Lanka Post headquarters, a modern nine storey building, at 10 D. R. Wijewardene Mawatha, which also hosts the Postal Museum. Sri Lanka Post was only given 24 hours to vacate the building, which was then occupied by the Presidential Security Division. The former Colombo General Post Office down Janadipathi Mawatha, Colombo Fort was the headquarters of the Sri Lanka Post and the office of the Postmaster General for over one hundred years, from 1895 until 2000.