Bombay Castle (also Casa da Orta) is one of the oldest defensive structures built in the city of

Mumbai Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial capital and the most populous city proper of India with an estimated population of 12 ...

(formerly Bombay). The current castle is a structure built by the

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

on the site of the ''Manor House'' built by a Portuguese nobleman Garcia de Orta. Orta had leased the island of Bombay from the

King of Portugal This is a list of Portuguese monarchs who ruled from the establishment of the Kingdom of Portugal, in 1139, to the deposition of the Portuguese monarchy and creation of the Portugal, Portuguese Republic with the 5 October 1910 revolution. Thro ...

between 1554 and 1570. The castle was built of local blue Kurla stone and red

laterite Laterite is a soil type rich in iron and aluminium and is commonly considered to have formed in hot and wet tropical areas. Nearly all laterites are of rusty-red coloration, because of high iron oxide content. They develop by intensive and prolo ...

stone from the

Konkan The Konkan is a stretch of land by the western coast of India, bound by the river Daman Ganga at Damaon in the north, to Anjediva Island next to Karwar town in the south; with the Arabian Sea to the west and the Deccan plateau to the eas ...

region to the south. The islands came under the hands of the English in 1665, and the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...

took possession of the castle in 1668. Over the next ten years, they built a defensive structure around the manor. The castle had four Bastions, three of which were originally surrounded completely with water. These were named the Flag Staff Bastion (where a British Flag had been hoisted), The Flower tree Bastion, and the Tank Bastion. The fourth was the Brab Tree Bastion, known for being near a Brab Tree. This would face the West. 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 A navy, naval force, military maritime fleet, war navy, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operatio ...

station in South Mumbai. A

sundial A sundial is a horology, horological device that tells the time of day (referred to as civil time in modern usage) when direct sunlight shines by the position of the Sun, apparent position of the Sun in the sky. In the narrowest sense of the ...

thought to date back to the Portuguese era is also present. This sundial does not mark out the 12 hours of a day, but rather marks out certain periods that the people of the time deemed important. The main building within the castle was the Governor's House, in which Gerald Aungier, the second Governor of Bombay used to stay. The residence was later moved to

Parel Parel (ISO 15919, ISO: Paraḷ, pronunciation: Help:IPA/Marathi, əɾəɭ is a neighbourhood in the south of Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. Originally one of the Seven Islands of Bombay, Parel became an industrial center after the unificatio ...

and then to Malabar Hill over the next two centuries. The current building houses the offices of the Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief Western Naval Command.

Gallery

File:Ships in Bombay Harbour, 1731.jpg, Ships in Bombay Harbour, 1731. The Castle can be seen at the right File:Bombay fort from the sea.jpg, Bombay fort from the sea File:Entrance to the Bombay Fort.jpg, Entrance to the Bombay Fort File:Bombay Castle Gateway, 1891.jpg, Bombay Castle Gateway, 1891 File:Model of Bombay Castle at Bhau Daji Lad Museum.jpg, Model of the Bombay Castle at Bhau Daji Lad Museum

References

External links

* *
Main Portuguese Gate to Bombay Castle
at '' Wikimapia''.
Bird's Eye view Animation of the Bombay Castle, had the proposal to axe the surrounding palm trees been executed ( 1600s)
{{Forts in India Castles in India British forts Portuguese structures in Mumbai Portuguese forts in India Properties of the East India Company British colonial architecture in India 1550s establishments in Portuguese India 1660s in British India 1670s in British India 17th-century forts in India

Gallery

See also

References

External links