Tipu Sultan’s Summer Palace, Bengaluru

Bangalore enjoys quite a temperate climate compared with much of the rest of India, and for this reason was chosen as the site for Tipu Sultan to build his summer palace in the 1780s.

Today it is not exactly in the best condition but it is slowly being preserved and repaired. I thought it’d be bigger but I guess it WAS bigger before the British ousted Tipu and win control of Mysore. The columns and walls and ceilings are all solid teak.

Rockets for Tipu!

Hindu temples like this one were built on the sites of earlier Moslem palaces.

                        The interior of the palace. 

Below are images of some contemporary paintings of the palace by an English officer, James Hunter. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hunter_(military_artist) He was a lieutenant in the Royal Artillery and served under Cornwallis at Serengapatem. He died in 1792 and is buried in Vellore.

The palace in the mid-nineteenth century.

On Thursday we are off to Serengapatem and Mysore for a couple days. Looking forward to it. My Wellington In India itch is being well and truly scratched!