Flagstaff Tower is a one-room, castellated tower, built around 1828 as a

signal tower On a rail transport system, signalling control is the process by which control is exercised over train movements by way of railway signals and block systems to ensure that trains operate safely, over the correct route and to the proper timetab ...

, located in Kamla Nehru Ridge near the present-day North Campus of

Delhi University Delhi University (DU), formally the University of Delhi, is a collegiate central university located in New Delhi, India. It was founded in 1922 by an Act of the Central Legislative Assembly and is recognized as an Institute of Eminence (IoE) ...

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. It was here that many Europeans and their families sheltered on 11 May 1857, during the

Siege of Delhi The siege of Delhi was one of the decisive conflicts of the Indian Rebellion of 1857. The rebellion against the authority of the East India Company was widespread through much of Northern India, but essentially it was sparked by the mass up ...

by the rebels at the beginning of the Indian rebellion of that year, waiting for help to arrive from nearby

Meerut Meerut (, IAST: ''Meraṭh'') is a city in Meerut district of the western part of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. The city lies northeast of the national capital New Delhi, within the National Capital Region and west of the state capital ...

. Jones, p. 203 Built by the British Indian Army, the building was part of the British cantonment and was used as a signal tower. Before forestation started in 1910, the area where the tower was built was the highest point on the ridge and was mostly barren, covered with low-lying shrub. Today it is a memorial and "protected monument" under Archaeological Survey of India. The monument is still preserved and in very good condition. This

cemetery A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite or graveyard is a place where the remains of dead people are buried or otherwise interred. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek , "sleeping place") implies that the land is specifically designated as a buri ...

, where the few

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

who fell during the uprising are buried with their leader,

Brigadier Brigadier is a military rank, the seniority of which depends on the country. In some countries, it is a senior rank above colonel, equivalent to a brigadier general or commodore, typically commanding a brigade of several thousand soldiers. I ...

John Nicholson, is now that well preserved that a Britain's High Commissioner, Mr. Michael Arthur, who once helped in the restoration and repairing of the cemetery thought that it surpassed many of the cemeteries in

Britain Britain most often refers to: * The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands * Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...

, with its beautiful glimpse of the history of the year 1857.

History

Flagstaff Tower played an important role during the

Indian Rebellion of 1857 The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a major uprising in India in 1857–58 against the rule of the British East India Company, which functioned as a sovereign power on behalf of the British Crown. The rebellion began on 10 May 1857 in the fo ...

, when Delhi was captured by the rebellious East India Company forces. On the morning of 11 May 1857, when the

sepoys ''Sepoy'' () was the Persian-derived designation originally given to a professional Indian infantryman, traditionally armed with a musket, in the armies of the Mughal Empire. In the 18th century, the French East India Company and its oth ...

started hunting for and killing European personnel and Christian Indians in the Cantonment,

Civil Lines Civil Lines (archaically White Town) are the residential neighbourhoods developed during the British Raj for its senior civilian officers like Divisional commissioner and District magistrate. These townships were built all over the Indian subconti ...

and the

walled city of Delhi Old Delhi or Purani Dilli is an area in the Central Delhi district of Delhi, India. It was founded as a walled city named Shahjahanabad in 1648, when Shah Jahan (the Mughal emperor at the time) decided to shift the Mughal capital from Agra. Th ...

, the survivors started fleeing towards the Tower. A month later the Company army returned to capture

, which was now with the sepoys. On 7 June, they faced stiff resistance from the sepoys at the Flagstaff Tower. A fierce battle followed which led to the killing and wounding of a great number of soldiers. However, by five in the evening the ridge had been recaptured and was now under British control.

Architecture

Inside the tower, which is locked, there is a circular room that can hold a crowd of up to a hundred people. It resembles a mini

fort A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...

but not that safe. In recent times some parts of the tower have been ruined due to people having scribbled on its wall. Before

deforestation Deforestation or forest clearance is the removal of a forest or stand of trees from land that is then converted to non-forest use. Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. The most concentrated ...

in the year 1910, the area where the tower was built was the point on the ridge and was mostly barren and covered with small-sized

shrubs A shrub (often also called a bush) is a small-to-medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees ...

References

External links

* *
Flagstaff Tower
at

wikimapia Wikimapia is a geographic online encyclopedia project. The project implements an interactive "clickable" web map that utilizes Google Maps with a geographically-referenced wiki system, with the aim to mark and describe all geographical objects ...

{{coord, 28.6881, N, 77.2181, E, source:wikidata, display=title Monuments of National Importance in Delhi Towers completed in 1828 History of Delhi

History

Architecture

See also

References

External links