Lalgarh Palace is a palace and heritage hotel in

Bikaner Bikaner () is a city in the northwest of the States and territories of India, state of Rajasthan, India. It is located northwest of the state capital, Jaipur. It is the administrative headquarters of Bikaner District and Bikaner division. Fo ...

, in the Indian state of

Rajasthan Rajasthan (; Literal translation, lit. 'Land of Kings') is a States and union territories of India, state in northwestern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the List of states and union territories of ...

, built for Sir

Ganga Singh General Maharaja Sir Ganga Singh (13 October 1880 – 2 February 1943) was the ruling Maharaja of the princely state of Bikaner (in present-day Rajasthan, India) from 1888 to 1943. As a member of the Imperial War Cabinet, he was present in the ...

Maharaja Maharaja (also spelled Maharajah or Maharaj; ; feminine: Maharani) is a royal title in Indian subcontinent, Indian subcontinent of Sanskrit origin. In modern India and Medieval India, medieval northern India, the title was equivalent to a pri ...

, between 1902 and 1926.

Laxmi Niwas Palace Lalgarh Palace is a palace and heritage hotel in Bikaner, in the Indian state of Rajasthan, built for Sir Ganga Singh, Maharaja of Bikaner (princely state), Bikaner, between 1902 and 1926. Laxmi Niwas Palace is a part of Lalgarh Palace but it ha ...

is a part of Lalgarh Palace but it has been given on lease and recently is being used as a heritage hotel and marriage garden.

History

The palace was built between 1902 and 1926 in the

Indo-Saracenic style Indo-Saracenic architecture (also known as Indo-Gothic, Mughal-Gothic, Neo-Mughal) was a revivalist architectural style mostly used by British architects in India in the later 19th century, especially in public and government buildings in the B ...

. The building was commissioned 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 ...

-controlled regency for Maharaja Ganga Singh (1881–1942) while he was still in his minority as they considered the existing

Junagarh Fort Junagarh Fort is a fort in the city of Bikaner, Rajasthan, India. The fort was originally called Chintamani and was renamed Junagarh or "Old Fort" in the early 20th century when the ruling family moved to Lalgarh Palace outside the fort limits ...

unsuitable for a modern monarch. Ganga Singh decided that the palace should be named in memory of his father Maharaja Lal Singh.Crites, page 94. Ganga Singh was legendary for his shikars (hunts), his hunts are preserved at Gajner Palace, in particular, his Imperial Sand Grouse hunts at Christmas. As a result, the palace hosted many guests including

Georges Clemenceau Georges Benjamin Clemenceau (28 September 1841 – 24 November 1929) was a French statesman who was Prime Minister of France from 1906 to 1909 and again from 1917 until 1920. A physician turned journalist, he played a central role in the poli ...

in 1920, Queen Mary, King George V, Lord Harding, and Lord Irwin. Lord Curzon was the palace's first notable guest. Stanley Reed, the official reporter of the 1905-06 India tour of the Prince and Princess of Wales (later

King George V George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 – 20 January 1936) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until his death in 1936. George was born during the reign of his pa ...

and Queen Mary of

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...

) noted that "The Laxmi Niwas Palace is the most perfect modern building in the Indo-Saracenic style in India - an entirely graceful pile of carved red sandstone, nobly proportioned and harmonising entirely with its environment. Their Royal Highnesses have not been more splendidly housed since they landed in Bombay". In 1972,

Karni Singh Maharaja Karni Singh ji (21 April 1924 – 6 September 1988), also known as Dr Karni Singh, was from 1950 the last Maharaja of Bikaner State to hold the title of Maharaja of Bikaner, officially, until 1971, when the privy purse and all the ro ...

, M.P., the Maharaja of Bikaner, established the Ganga Singhji Charitable Trust. The Maharaja endowed a part of Lallgarh Palace to be used in service of the trust. Two wings were converted into independent hotels with the income from The Lallgarh Palace Hotel, a heritage hotel used to support the trust. Currently, Lallgarh Palace is owned, and the hotel is run, by his daughter

Princess Princess is a title used by a female member of a regnant monarch's family or by a female ruler of a principality. The male equivalent is a prince (from Latin '' princeps'', meaning principal citizen). Most often, the term has been used for ...

Rajyashree Kumari.

Architecture

The complex was designed by the British architect Sir

Samuel Swinton Jacob Sir Samuel Swinton Jacob, (14 January 1841 – 4 December 1917), known as Sir Swinton Jacob, was a British Army officer and colonial engineer, architect and writer, best known for the numerous Indian public buildings he designed in the Indo-S ...

. After a ritual blessing ceremony construction commenced in 1896 on empty land 5 miles from the existing

on what is now Dr. Karni Singhji Road. The palace was arranged around two courtyards with the first wing, Laxmi Niwas completed in 1902. The remaining three wings were completed in stages with final completion of the complex accomplished in 1926.Crites, page 98. The palace was originally designed to cost 100,000 rupees. Retrieved 12 April 2008 due to the planned use of cheaper materials including the suggestion of using

stucco Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and ...

instead of carved stone in the construction. Soon however all cost-cutting was abandoned and by time of the completion of the first wing the cost had increased to 1 million rupees due to the use of the finest materials including the widespread employment of finely carved stonework. The three-storey complex is coated in red sandstone quarried from the

Thar Desert The Thar Desert (), also known as the Great Indian Desert, is an arid region in the north-western part of the Indian subcontinent that covers an area of in India and Pakistan. It is the world's 18th-largest desert, and the world's 9th-large ...

. The complex contains the features considered essential for a late 19th-century palace: drawing rooms, smoking rooms, guest suites, several grand halls, lounges,

cupolas In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, usually dome-like structure on top of a building often crowning a larger roof or dome. Cupolas often serve as a roof lantern to admit light and air or as a lookout. The word derives, via Ital ...

pavilions In architecture, ''pavilion'' has several meanings; * It may be a subsidiary building that is either positioned separately or as an attachment to a main building. Often it is associated with pleasure. In palaces and traditional mansions of Asia ...

, including a dining room which could seat 400 diners. The complex features magnificent pillars, elaborate fireplaces, Italian colonnades and intricate

latticework __NOTOC__ Latticework is an openwork framework consisting of a criss-crossed pattern of strips of building material, typically wood or metal. The design is created by crossing the strips to form a grid or weave. Latticework may be functional &nd ...

and

filigree Filigree (also less commonly spelled ''filagree'', and formerly written ''filigrann'' or ''filigrene'') is a form of intricate metalwork used in jewellery and other small forms of metalwork. In jewellery, it is usually of gold and silver, m ...

work. The Karni Niwas wing houses the darbar hall and an art deco indoor swimming pool.

Overview

At present the palace houses the following: * The Shri Sadul Museum which is located in the west wing which also contains the fourth largest private library in the world. The museum is open from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM on all weekdays except on Sunday. * In one wing the private home of the Bikaner Royal Family. * The Lallgarh Palace Hotel. This is a Heritage hotel is owned and operated by the Maharaja Ganga Singh Ji Trust and marketed by Maharaja Heritage Resorts Limited under a Franchise and Marketing Services Agreement. * The

. This is a luxury hotel, owned by Golden Triangle Fort & Palace P. Ltd. The magnificent structure in red

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

is one of the most popular destinations for tourists in

.Trip Advisor Review
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References

Literature

* * * *

External links

{{Commons category, Lalgarh Palace
Homepage of the Lallgarh Palace Hotel
Palaces in Rajasthan Royal residences in India Hotels in Rajasthan Tourist attractions in Bikaner Rajput architecture Houses completed in 1926 Heritage hotels in India Sandstone buildings in India Samuel Swinton Jacob buildings 20th-century architecture in India