Audio Guided Tour Through Dalhousie or BBD Bagh Area, Kolkata

What's included

What you'll see and do

1. The entrance of the Curzon Park with the Governor’s House to your back. It commands a good view of both the stately Raj Bhavan and the splendid Esplanade Mansion. It is difficult to believe that the rundown park used to be covered with flower beds till the 1940’s. Earlier, it was all water. Dharamtalla Tank, the water body that used to exist here, was on its north-east corner and it covered one-fourth of what is now the park

   15 minutes here

2. It belongs to the Life Insurance Corporation of India or LIC now, but it was constructed in 1910 by the Jewish tycoon, David Ezra. A giant neon sign LIC logo of the folded hands protecting a flame is installed on the terrace. The LIC is one of India’s richest landlords. According to a large signboard on the building’s ground floor wall, its address is 14/16 Government Place (East). The ground floor is occupied by the Eastern Railways. It has three blocks with eight flats in each. The flats command a great view of the Maidan. All the 999 windows catch the south breeze. South facing flats are at a premium in Kolkata.

   15 minutes here

3. Raj Bhavan

   Raj Bhavan is the official residence of the Governor of West Bengal, located in the capital city Kolkata.. The 27 acres enclosed by an ornamental wall are screened by tall trees and bamboo groves. But in the 19th century up to 1870, no trees were in sight. Its vastness can be guessed from the remark of one of its residents, Lady Dufferin. When asked where meals were cooked in Government House, she remarked: “Somewhere in Calcutta”. It was the first palace of the “City of Palaces” as Calcutta was known then. Several buildings had to be demolished before there was adequate space for the construction of Raj Bhavan or as the British called it, Government House.

   5 minutes here

4. The Great Eastern Hotel started operating from these premises circa 1841, when it was known as Auckland Hotel. The name of the hotel has changed several times. Spence’s Hotel owned by John Spence that overlooked the Raj Bhavan’s north entrance was built before 1830. It is a newspaper office now. In the beginning, an Englishman named David Wilson, who owned a confectionery shop in what is now Bentinck Street, started Auckland Hotel with 100 rooms at its current address and named it after Lord Auckland, then governor general. But it was better known as Wilson’s Hotel and it was run by a partnership firm named D. Wilson and Company. In 1865, the hotel was floated as a company dubbed the Great Eastern Hotel Wine and General Purveying Company. An eminent Indian, the writer Tek Chand Thakur, whose real name was Peary Chand Mitter, was inducted into its board of directors and W.C. Bonerjee, the first Indian president of the Indian National Congress, better known as the Congress party today, became its shareholder.

   5 minutes here

5. Till the advent of wristwatches, C&K remained the most coveted name in master-crafted timepieces in British India. Founded by Robert Thomas Cooke and Charles Kelvey in Calcutta (now Kolkata), in 1858, C&K was frequented and desired by many in British India. Their status as watchmakers was a puller.

   5 minutes here

6. It originally belonged to the Standard Life Assurance Company at 32 and 32A BBD Bag. After decades of neglect the 118-year-old building was saved from disaster when repairs began in early 2014. The exposed brick building was painted a dark shade of red with touches of cream. The building was designed under the supervision of Frederick William Stevens, consulting architect to the insurance company, who had also designed the Victoria Terminus railway station in Mumbai, which has been renamed Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus. The construction of this building began in 1894 and it was completed in 1896. Stevens, who died in Mumbai of malaria, was a high priest of the Indian Gothic style, but there is no trace of that in Standard Building. Instead it flaunts some of the most beautiful relief sculpture anywhere. Standing at the corner of Red Cross Place and facing Raj Bhavan, Standard Building is noticeable because of the cupola or dome on the terrace and the weather vane topping it. As its two addresses suggest, the three-storeyed building has two wings joined by two bridges across a small lane called the Vansittart Row.

   15 minutes here

7. The gigantic and beautiful architecture was constructed between 1882 to 1884 during the tenure of Lord Ripon who was the Governor General of the British India. E J Martin was the architect and the Executive Engineer C J Mills was in charge of the entire construction. The red brick structure was built on a classical quadrangular plane. It has tall windows with beautiful arches, matching sets of Corinthian pillars and railed roofs with pair of phoenixes at intervals. Originally it was meant to accommodate the offices of the finance department of the British India. Now it housed the main office of the Principal Accountant General (audit & accounts), Government of West Bengal. The decorative tablets, arching gateways and beautiful mansards at each end of the long cloisters running along quadrangles making it gracefully gorgeous.

   15 minutes here

8. The church was built on ground gifted by Raja Nabakrishna Deb of Shobhabazar to Warren Hastings and the church committee. The Raja “conveyed” the Old Powder Magazine Yard to Hastings for sicca rupees 10,000. Hastings laid the foundation on April 6, 1784, and it was ready in three years. Sir John Shore commented: “A pagan gave the ground: all characters subscribed: lotteries, confiscations, donations received contrary to law were employed in completing it. The Company contributed but little: no great proof they think the morals of their servants connected with religion.” Sounds very similar to the drives to collect subscriptions for Durga puja. But for St Paul’s Cathedral on Chowringhee that was consecrated in 1874, it would have been the main place of worship for Protestant Anglicans. The church was designed by Lieutenant James Agg and was modelled on St Martin-in-the-Fields of London

   15 minutes here

9. After you reached the HSBC builbing. You need to cross the road to your left and reach the other side of the road where you will find tram tracks. That is the Laldighi side of Dalhousie and this is where the tram services terminate.

   5 minutes here

10. The Royal Insurance Company Building was surely designed to give its clients the feeling that their money was in safe hands. The building stands cheek-and-jowl with the white Shaw Wallace building behind it. The name of the company is carved with a flourish on its stone face above the entrance at the crossing of BabuTarapada Mukherjee Sarani as the more evocative Koilaghat Street is known today. Koilaghat as most people still call the street is a corruption of KillaGhat or Fort Wharf as it once ran along the southern side of the killa or old fort.

    15 minutes here

11. Walter B. Granville, architect to the Government of India, who had designed the Indian Museum on Chowringhee, St James’ Church and the Calcutta High Court building, had also planned the grand GPO building. The two-storeyed structure is fronted by rows of Corinthian columns that form graceful arcs facing BBD Bag and Koilaghat Streetor BabuTarapada Mukherjee Sarani. It is difficult to get used to the new name. A grand flight of stairs on both sides leads to the high central hall. When the GPO was being constructed, the foundations of the Old Fort had survived at the Koilaghat Street corner. The masonry was rock hard. It had to be blasted.

    15 minutes here

12. Road, the red, two-storied building of the Calcutta Collectorate constructed in 1892. After the East India Company took charge of the three villages, Sutanuti, Kolkata and Gobindapur, that formed the nucleus of Calcutta in 1700, Ralph Sheldon was appointed the first collector or zamindar of the East India Company, who was given arbitrary powers. He was also in charge of the police force. Among his duties were collection of taxes, construction of roads and keeping drains clean. Nandaram, Jagat Das, Ram Bhadra and GobindaramMitter, who had built the Chitpur Black pagoda remnants of which still survive, succeeded each other as his assistants. John Zephaniah Holwell, a Black Hole survivor after whom the monument was named, was a zamindar and he sacked both Nandaram and Gobindaram for heavy frauds. Gobindaram himself wielded much power, and he won back his position as he paid back the sum he had embezzled. Who says there was no corruption during the Raj? Perhaps it is difficult to keep track of the scale of corruption today, but let us not pretend it never existed earlier.

    15 minutes here

13. The Writers’ Building that is formally known as Mahakaran and is popularly dubbed Lalbari or red house because of its colour. The Writers’ Building was not always red, and all those grand neo-classical features were added on over the years from late 18th century, when it was constructed. It was not the seat of power either in the beginning. It is now being “restored” by the public works department.

    15 minutes here

14. The church’s foundation was laid by the Governor- General, Marquis of Wellesley, in 1815 at the initiative of Rev James Bryce. It was constructed by Burn Currie & Co, and thanks to its high plinth, rising damp was never a problem. It was the first church in the city to be air-conditioned in the 1950s, and this saved it from pollution. Air pollution is deadly here. The portico facing Laldighi has a triangular pediment, and the one at the rear meant for carriages in the past is used to park cars. It is shaded by wooden jalis. Even in the 1950s the Scots used to come here for Scottish country dances but by the 1960s they were all gone. On the other side of the church is the handsome Tobacco House once owned by the family of B.N. Elias, a Jewish industrialist.

    15 minutes here

15. The Currency Building is a rare example of the Italian style of architecture in Calcutta. It is a massive and handsome corner building that was once floored up to the third storey with Italian marble. It has a symmetrical facade, nine bays wide, and a central portico spanning three bays. The portico ornamented with florid cast iron pillars and rails emphasises its grandeur. One enters it through a giant wrought iron gate of ornate design. The gate was made by Harris & Gibbs of Bristol, England. Its name is emblazoned on it. Constructed in 1868, it originally housed the Agra and Masterman’s Bank.

    15 minutes here

Where it starts and ends

Before you book

Cancellation

All sales are final. No refund is available for cancellations.

Languages

en

Ticket

Mobile Only

Runs on

Every day

Group size

Up to 15 travelers per booking

Operated by

HopOn India

Know before you go

• Public transportation options are available nearby
• Suitable for all physical fitness levels

Photos