The
Hazarduari Palace,
or the palace with a
thousand doors is the chief tourist attraction of Murshidabad. This three-storey
palace was built in 1837 by Duncan McLeod for the Nawab Najim
Humaun Jah,
descendent of Mir Zafar. It has thousand doors (among which only 900
are real)
and 114 rooms and 8 galleries, built in European architectural style. The total
area of Hazarduari Palace is 41 acres. It is now a museum and has an
exquisite collection of armoury, splendid paintings, exhaustive portraits
of the Nawabs, various works of art including beautiful works of ivory (Murshidabad
school) of China (European) and many other valuables.
The Armoury has 2700 arms in its collections of which only few are
displayed. Swords used by Shiraj-ud-Daulla and his grandfather, Nawab
Alivardi Khan, can be seen here. The other attractions in this floor are
Vintage Cars and Fittan Cars used by the Nawabs and their families.
The
library containing rare collections is not accessible to the public unless
special permission is obtained.
The building, rectangular on plan ( 424 feet Long and 200 feet broad
and 80 feet high). The Palace was used for holding the "Durbar" or
meetings and other official work of the Nawabs and also as the residence of
the high ranking British Officials.
Between the palace and the Imambara is a small mosque, ‘Madina’,
with colourful tiled verandahs. The Mosque has an ornamented replica of
Hazrat Muhammad's tomb at Madina.
 Around
the palace are other attractions like the
Wasef
Manzil (the New Palace) by the bank of the Ganga, Tripolia Gate,
the Dakshin Darwaza, the Chak Darwaza, the
Imambara, the Gharighar (the Clock Tower), the Bachchawali
Tope (a canon) and the Madina, the only surviving structure built by Siraj-ud-Doula.
The Bachchawali Tope
(canon) was made between the 12th and the 14th century, probably by the
Mohammedan rulers of Gour, and requires about 18 Kg of gun powder for a
single shelling. |
