Chepauk Palace

The Chepauk Palace was once the crowning jewel of the Arcot Nawabs is now a sorry state of neglect. This palace was the pioneer for Indo-Saracenic architectural style, later followed by ‘Robert Chisholm, Henry Irwin, Lutyens and Baker.

The Palace comprises two distinct blocks that were a hundred years later linked by Chisholm with the distinctive tower. The northern, single-storey block was Humayun Mahal and a part of it was the soaring two-storeyed Diwani Khana (Durbar Hall). The southern block, the Khalsa Mahal, is two-storeyed and smaller domed. In its heyday, the grounds of Chepauk Palace stretched from what is now Bell’s Road to the beach and from Pycroft’s Road to the Cooum River.

SOURCE: Madras Rediscovered

Wallajah Mosque

The Nawab of Arcots had a huge role in making madras the way it was. The Wallajah Mosque, also known as the Big Mosque is one of their monumental architectural achievement. It was built in 1795 off what is now Triplicane High Road, with aid from the Nawab Wallajah’s family. Built of grey granite, with no wood or steel used, it is considered one of the most beautiful mosques in South India. The mosque can comfortably seat a few thousand worshippers. In it is a chronogram engraved in stone and unique because it is perhaps the only work by a Hindu to be found in a mosque; the words in Persian are by Rajah Makhan Lal Khirat, Private Secretary to Nawab Wallajah and a scholar in Persian and Arabic.

The mosque, set in vast grounds, cannot be seen from Triplicane High Road today, hidden as it is by much new construction, all of it tasteless. But enter through the almost hidden gate and the open space before you enables the visitor to enjoy unhindered the splendour of the mosque.
Madras’s multifaceted culture is something to be celebrated especially in this day and age where we face a rise in the one country- one culture attitude. Chennai will continue to be the cultural yet progressive and modern city it always has been.

Source: The Hindu |S.Muthiah

Amir Mahal, 1798.

Islamic influences in architecture, food and lifestyle can be evidently seen throughout india and that has seeped in to madras too thanks to the Nawabs of Arcot. Amir Mahal in Royapettah is the current residence of the Prince of Arcot, Nawab Mohammed Abdul Ali Azim Jah and his wife Sayeeda Begum but it wasn’t always that.
The annexation of the Carnatic by the British in 1801 led to the abolition of the ‘Nawabocracy’ .A Titular Nawab was created, but that was only till 1855 when the British annexed all the family’s Chepauk properties and, in return, Queen Victoria granted the family by treaty hereditary rights to be called the Princes of Arcot (Amir-e-Arcot) and enjoy various benefits of protocol. The family moved to Shadi Mahal on Triplicane High Road, the Muslim High School now a part of it.
In 1870, the British gave the Arcot family Amir Mahal, which had been built in 1798 and been used by the Sadr Adalat — the Chief Court of Civil Judicature for the trial of appeals from the Provincial Courts of Appeal .With the Arcot family not keen to move into it, the Royapettah Police Court functioned there from 1872 to 1875, the Sadr Adalat having, by then, been abolished. In 1876, the Arcot family eventually moved into Amir Mahal and its 14-acre grounds, after it was suitably refurbished. The building was recently renovated in 2011
Some of the most iconic buildings have all been given away by Muhammad Ali Wallajah, one of the most beloved Nawabs of Arcot. Many other temples in the South stand on lands gifted by the Nawabs. Nawab Wallajah’s philanthropy was so celebrated that a road in Chennai (Wallajah Road in Triplicane) and areas in Tamil Nadu, Wallajahbad and Wallajahpet, and a gate in Fort St.George were named after him.

Source:Madras Rediscovered