According to popular history, Vettimuricha kotta was made during the reign of Visakam Tirunal Rama Varma (ruled from 1880 to 1885), who, it is said, had ordered its construction to test an astrologer. Visakam Tirunal, in an effort to outsmart the confident astrologer, ordered to break the fort wall, creating a new gateway. Thus, the fort wall was cut open and Vettimuricha kotta came into existence.

The earliest and perhaps the only pictorial depiction of the old Vettimuricha kotta gateway dates back to 1852, from a painting by F.C. Lewis, a European artist, who was invited to document a grand royal durbar when the then ruler Uthram Tirunal Marthanda Varma received a message from Queen Victoria.