WAT KHOK (1)





Wat Khok, or the Monastery of the Mound, was located on Ayutthaya’s city island outside the Historical Park in the Pratu Chai Sub-district, just opposite Hua Laem (headland).


The temple was situated north of a former canal called Khlong Fang (1) and close to its mouth and watergate, connecting with the present Chao Phraya River. Wat Sing stood south of the temple, while Wat Tuek was on its north-east. Wat Khok stood behind the Sat Kop Fortress.


There are no traces anymore of the former monastery.


Historical data about the monastery and its construction are unknown.


The site is shown on a 19th-century map by an unknown surveyor in a similar position as Phraya Boran Rachathanin's map drafted in 1926 CE. Phraya Boran (1871-1936 CE) was the Superintendent Commissioner of Monthon Ayutthaya from 1925 till 1929 CE but occupied important functions since 1896 CE in Monthon Ayutthaya.


Wat Khok must have been approximately in geographical coordinates: 14° 21' 23.72" N, 100° 32' 59.06" E.


Footnotes:


(1) Khlong Fang, or the Rice Straw Canal, is a defunct canal situated in the Pratu Chai Sub-district before. The east-west running canal had its mouth at the old Lopburi River near Hua Laem and linked up with Khlong Pak Tho. The canal pierced the fortified city wall at the Khlong Fang Gate, a large watergate between Wat Sing and the Satkop Fortress. The canal has been filled up somewhere after the fall of Ayutthaya (1767), and no traces of the waterway are left today, except for a part of the moat of Wat Worachetharam. Khlong Fang extended as a small ditch into the Grand Palace grounds, feeding Sa Kaeo (Crystal Pond).