Description of the attraction
On the eastern bank of the Hooghly River, one of the main tributaries of the Ganges, in Calcutta, the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, is one of the city's main attractions - Fort William. It was built at the very beginning of the period of British rule in India, and is named after the English king William (William) III. Directly in front of it is the largest public park in Kolkata - Maidan.
There are officially two Fort William - the old one and the new one. The old fortress was built in 1696 by the British East India Company under the leadership of John Goldmbourgh to strengthen European power in the area. Then the South-East Bastion and the wall surrounding it were created. Later, in 1701, John Beard built the Northeast Bastion, and in 1702 he began construction of the Government House (House of Management) in the very center of the fortress - a large two-story building. And he completed it only in 1706. It was in this building that the infamous "black hole" was located - a small basement in which more than a hundred British soldiers were tortured in 1756 when the fortress was captured by the troops of the nawab (ruler) of Bengal, Siraj ud-Daulah. At the same time, the fort was renamed Alinagar. But already in 1758, after the Battle of Plessis, Robert Clive returned Fort William to the British. In 1781 he began to reconstruct the fortress and build a "new" fort, as a result of which the area occupied by him increased to 70, 9 hectares.
Today, the territory of the new fort belongs to the Indian army - it houses the headquarters of the Eastern Command, and the fortress itself is capable of accommodating up to 10 thousand soldiers. The "new" Fort William is heavily guarded and civilians are not allowed to enter.
