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The Shahi Baoli was constructed in order to be used as a water
reservoir. It is one of the most unique buildings that Asaf-ud-Daulah
built. It was constructed around a large well that had been initially
dug as a reservoir for storing water for construction work near the
Imambara.
it turned out to be a perennial source of water, being connected
underground with the river flowing nearby. It would have remained there
as a well, but Asaf-ud-Daulah who had a desire to build unique
buildings, ordered it to be built as a guest-house - the Shahi Mehmaan
Khana.
History
Post-completion, on April 6, 1784, it saw Warren Hastings, the Governor
General of East India Company, as one of its first distinguished guests.
His stay in the Baoli is reflected in his remark 'I am lodged most
magnificently and most uncomfortably'. How, Hastings was not comfortable
is something of a surprise since accounts of other guests who visited
Lucknow around the period and stayed there run counter to his statement
of Baoli providing an uncomfortable stay. |
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Take for
instance, the remark of Viscount Valentia, who stayed in the Baoli in
1803 as the guest of the reigning Nawab, Saadat Ali Khan and who recalls
his apartments in the Baoli palace in Voyages and Travels in India and
Ceylon as 'two rooms in the back of a very beautiful garden pavilion,
with as usual a basin of water in front. These were heated by flues
under the floor. The first room was about twenty feet square, with three
fountains for either cold or hot water, in oblong niches on three sides
of the room. On the fourth was the entrance to the inner room.'
Architecture
At each
corner was a pillar from which arches spring that sustained the roof,
which gradually narrowed into a cupola. The whole was covered with fine
white chunam, ornamented with black, to correspond with the floor which
is entireiy of white marble inlaid with mosaic work of black and red.
In fact,
the flooring with its heating was specially ordered from England and a
report in a London newspaper of 1792 mentions the fact.
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The
Prince of Oudh (Asaf-ud-Daulah) has given an order to a very eminent
and ingenious artist in this country (England) to prepare him
flooring of marble etc. for a smoking room (Sic). The order is
completed, and is the first thing of the kind that was ever made in
this country.
It is
20 feet square, and is composed of 8,000 pieces. In this flooring
are introduced all sorts of marble, Spa petrifications, etc. which
are arranged with a taste and judgement that do infinite credit to
the artist.
The
Baoli served as the coronation place for the fifth Nawab, Mirza Ali
alias Wazir Ali, the son of Asaf-ud-Daulah who was deposed by the
British after a rule of just four months (September 21,1797 to
January 21,1798). |
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Later the
Baoli palace also served as the residence of Tat Mahal (also called Khas
Mahal) a widow of Nawab Saadat Ali Khan, when she was dislodged from the
Farhat Bakhsh palace, on the orders of her stepson and the.ruler, Ghazi-ud-din
Haider.
Only a small part of the Shahi Baoli, towards the
Imambara, remains and exists today in
the form of a double arched gateway and an open staircase that leads to
the well along with a five storey structure formed with open archways
and galleries that interconnect. It is believed that there are two more
storey of the palace submerged below. The water in the well, appears
green and covered with algae, yet when a coin is dropped, it can be seen
for quite sometime, going deep into the well and vanishing.
The most
fascinating feature of this baoli is the secret view of the visitors
that it offers. Because of the alignment of one of the windows of the
building and it’s entrance pathway, one can see the colorful shadow of
the visitors standing at the entrance of this structure, on the water of
the well.
Getting There
Lucknow is
well connected with all metro and other important cities like Bangalore,
Chennai, Kolkata, New Delhi, Mumbai, Jammu Tawi, Guwahati, Chandigarh, Pune,
Jaipur and Bhopal either by Lucknow Charbagh(N.R.) or by Lucknow
Junction(N.E.R.). Chaudhary Charan Singh International Airport (IATA: LKO, ICAO: VILK),
is situated at Amausi in the city of Lucknow, India.
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