FORT ST. GEORGE

Fort St. George
The fort that grew into a metropolis. The building of the nucleus of this fort in 1640 was the first step towards the founding of Madras - and an Empire. The fort itself growing over the year and is one of the finest examples in India of British military construction. Within its solid walls and sturdy gates is much that is historic. Clive's Corner, in the house where Robert Clive lived, commemorates the Empire-builder who first learnt his trade here. St. Mary's Church, consecrated in 1680 and the oldest Protestant Church in the East, contains several antiquities, not the least being the oldest British tombstones in India and memories of weddings in which Clive and Elihu Yale (benefactor of America's famed Yale University), Arthur Wellesley (who became Wellington) and Warren Hastings participated. Wellesley House is where Wellesley lived on his first active military duty. The Legislature and Secretariat of the Tamil Nadu government are built around a core that was Fort House, the home of the first governors of Madras. And the Fort Museum, once a building that housed Madras's first lighthouse, first commercial bank and first `club', is now a well-kept repository of tangible memories of Early Madras.

HIGH COURT COMPLEX

On the site of Fort St. George's first Indian town has come up the splendid Indo-Saracenic buildings of the High Court and the Law College. Near the College was an ancient British cemetery; all that is now left of it here is a couple of tombs, including one of David, son of Elihu Yale. Near the High Court building is the city's second lighthouse tower and the highest point in the Court building once housed the third lighthouse.

GEORGE TOWN

This rabbit's warren of straight and narrow, criss-crossing streets is the Indian town that developed as Fort St. George grew. Today, it is the commercial heart of the city, throbbing with life from dawn to dusk, its streets packed with crowds of traders , buyers and their employees. After dusk, the true citizens of George Town, those in mansions atop dilapidated shops or in the more traditional 18th Century homes in the northern reaches, take over. And George Town becomes a vibrant town within a city. Rajaji Salai (North Beach Road) separates George Town from the Harbour and, along one side of it, starting with the earliest British commercial house, Parry's, are several of the major commercial institutions in Madras and many a building of 18th and 19th century architectural splendour. Bentinck's Building, the Collectorate, is one of them; once it was the home of the city's first Supreme Court. The northern limits of George Town are marked by Old Jail Road and Clive Battery, the old town walls still visible in parts. The western boundary of George Town is Wall Tax Road, commemorating another boundary wall - and an ill-fated tax - that is no more.

CORPORATION COMPLEX

One of the most beautiful of the more modern British constructions in Madras is Ripon Building, home of the Madras Corporation, the oldest municipality in India. This splendid domed vision in white, built in 1913, is part of a large municipal complex that includes parks and gardens, Nehru Stadium, Victoria Public Hall, a public meeting place out of the gaslight era, and Moore market, a fascinating shopper's paradise that is part of the ethos of Madras. Not far away are the College of Arts and Crafts, which has a nice permanent exhibition, and the imposing stone headquarters of the Southern Railway.

PANTHEON COMPLEX

Once British Society in Madras used to meet in the Pantheon. Its 18th century buildings and grounds have since then developed into the Connemara Library, one of the country's beautiful building of Jaipuri-Mughal architecture, the Government Museum with its fabulous collection of bronzes and the Museum Theatre, a quaint theatre that is another building out of the gaslight era.