THE BOMBAY CASTLE
Bombay Castle (also Casa da Orta) is one of the oldest defensive structures built in the city of Mumbai (formerly Bombay.Now sandwiched between the towering RBI headquarters and the Asiatic Society, this original British garrison’s every nook and corner is replete with history. An imposing 27-foot-high Portuguese gate welcomes you into the fortress, which has witnessed the transformation of seven scattered islands into a The history of Bombay Castle dates back to 1554, when a modest Quinta manor or Manor House was built by Portuguese physician and botanist, Garcia-da-Orta, who had leased the island of Bombaim from the Portuguese government. The Manor House was double-storied wooden structure surrounded by a garden. According to naval authorities, the Manor House became the residence of the Portuguese governor in 1626. By 1634, the structure was rebuilt and fortified with a single bastion and two cannons.
In 1661, Princess Catherine de Braganza of Portugal married Charles-II of England, and the islands were gifted to the British as dowry. The formal instrument of possession of Mumbai was signed in Manor House on February 18, 1665. The then British Governor, Humphrey Cook, is believed to have fortified the structure further with lime and stone, and make it large enough to accommodate 18 cannons. He named it Bombay Castle. The castle was built of local blue Kurla stone and red laterite stone from the Konkan region to the south. In 1662, after the islands came under the hands of the British, the British East India Company took possession of the castle in 1665. Over the next ten years, they built a defensive structure around the manor. Around the same time, a wall was being built around a new urban centre. The wall was later demolished in 1865 after the city grew rapidly. Fragments of this wall however still exist in some areas.
Few records of the original Portuguese castle remain and historians are trying to piece together the original location of the manor. Two gates of the manor are located within INS Angre, a naval station in South Mumbai. A sundial thought to date back to the Portuguese era is also present. This sundial does not mark out the 12 hours of a day, but marks out certain periods which are deemed to be important to people of those days. Bombay Castle had a commanding view that strategically encompassed the port, its two bays and the Town. In the words of an ensign, Bombay Castle, was, ‘the strongest hold our makers are master of, in India’. Historian James Douglas evokes the powerful impression of Bombay Castle, ‘you pass under a lofty gate. Two figures look upon you, Portuguese soldiers bearing aloft the great globe itself, significant emblem of an inflated dominion by sea and land’.
King Charles II was in perennial needs of funds. Three years later, the British Crown rented the islands to the East India Company for 10 pounds a year. Soon, Bombay Castle was further enlarged, and strengthened by Philip Gyfford. In a letter written by British Governor Gerald Aungier in 1673 to the Court of Directors in England, he says the Manor House was ‘‘burned down by the Arabs of Muscat when they took the island from the Portuguese in 1661’’. Today, a small naval medical unit stands at the exact spot where it once stood. The only marker to the spot is a beautiful Portuguese sundial in the courtyard. In 1686, Bombay Castle became the naval and administrative headquarters of the East India Company when the latter shifted base from Surat to Mumbai. ‘By 1710 the Castle had been provided with a strong magazine, quarters for soldiers and tanks to supply fresh water for a thousand people for twenty months’. Later, this move that had initiated fortifications, prompted another shift. It was deemed strategically inappropriate for the Governor to live within the bulwarks. For, ‘all those who visited him would be able to assess the strength and preparedness of the garrison.’ The search began for a new residence. The main building within this castle is the Governor's House (Raj Bhavan) in which Gerald Aungier, the second Governor of Bombay used to stay. The residence was later moved to Parel and then to Malabar Hill over the next two centuries. The current building houses the offices of the Flag Officer Commander-in-Chief of the Western Naval Command.
Bombay Castle was the focal point of the fortified city recommended by Aungier from Dongri to Mendham’s Point at the extreme southern end of the city. Though envisioned by Aungier, the walled town was built only much later, by Governor Charles Boone after his appointment in 1715. According to Bombay: The Cities Within, co-authored by Sharada Dwivedi and Rahul Mehrotra, the walled city had three fortified gates — Apollo Gate (near St Andrew’s Church), Church Gate (Flora Fountain), and Bazaar Gate (near the General Post Office). The main gateway to the Bombay Castle is a gem of Indo-Portuguese architecture: a western framework with Gujrati inspired motifs...long before the English invented the Indo-Sarracenic style.In 1769, an extension of the fortifications was built and named Fort St George. In 1862, the then governor Sir Bartle Frere issued the final orders for the demolition of the fortifications and to expand the city.
In 1940, Bombay Castle was renamed ‘INS Angre’, after the legendary Maratha admiral Kanhoji Angre. Much of Bombay Castle has been maintained in its original form by the naval authorities. At least 10 large cannons and two small ones are still visible on the Flagstaff Bastion and the Tank Bastion. The lookout window above the Portuguese gate has been preserved as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment