Heritage Walk: Serampore (Part 2B)

Continuing Heritage Walk: Serampore ...  

St. Olav's Church/Danish Church

Age: 214 years

Commonly known as Danish Church in the locality, St. Olav's Church was built in Frederiksnagore during the Danish rule by the name of Norway's national Saint Olav. The fund partly came from private subscription in Denmark and Serampore and partly by public grants. Construction was started by Danish governor of Serampore Lt. Olav Ole but he died in 1805, one year before the construction completed i.e. in 1806. The nave was completed in 1806, a year after the decease of Ole Bie, whereas the portico and the bell tower were completed in 1821.

Captain Krefting, successor of Ole completed the remaining work with the help from Englishmen John Chambers and Robert Armstrong. The Church has been used by the local congregation ever since. The church was Lutheran, for Serampore's Protestant citizens. As there was a small number of resident Danes, the services were performed by the English Baptist missionaries and never by any Danish priest.

Heritage Walk: Serampore, Hooghly (Part 2A)

Continuing Heritage Walk: Serampore

Unique Lodge 

130-year old family home of the Bhattacharya family. 

Pandit Kashinath Bhattacharya came to Serampore from Debipur, another village town of Hooghly on the request of Vidyasagar to teach Sanskrit. He settled in Dey St, but he died untimely. His son, Durga Prasanna became a building contractor and built this ancestral home for his family at 21 Dey Street. He was very fancy at his time, he founded a zoo inspired from Raja Rajendra Mullick's Marble Palace & the zoo. He also has a good number of dogs and won several trophies in the Dog Shows. 

Heritage Walk: Serampore, Hooghly (Part 2)

Continuing the Heritage Walk across the Serampore... Check first part of Serampore tour here.

As we have seen most of the Mahesh, we are now heading towards Dey Street and the northern part of the city. 

If you think about the historical timeline of Serampore, it can be divided into phases - before European colonization (before 1755), Danish colonization and associated Bengali culture (1755-1845), British colonization and industrialization (1845-1947) and post independence era (after 1947). Thanks to our governmental carelessness, the post independence era was mostly insignificant in all terms - neither the heritages were taken care of, nor new heritage was built up - Serampore, though one of the largest town of Hooghly district turned into a satellite town of Calcutta. 

Heritage Walk: Serampore, Hooghly (Part 1)

Serampore (Srirampur/শ্রীরামপুর) is a busy town of Hooghly district, approx. 25 km north to Kolkata, the capital city of West Bengal. Today Serampore looks like just another city of Bengal, full of high rises, crowd, narrow lanes, garbages etc,  but it has a rich colonial history, and that's not entirely British. Serampore was a trading post for the Danes (i.e. people from Denmark) during 1755 to 1845.

The Danish came to this area in 1676 but Danish colony was started from Gondalpara in 1698, which was at the south east corner of French territory of Chandannager. This place was known as Dinermardanga (দিনেমারডাঙ্গা). With the help from the French the Danes came to Serampore in 1755 with a farman from Nawab Alivardi Khan (born 1671, regent 1740-1756) of Bengal in exchange of Rs 1,50,000 or more. It was just a trading post back then under the Danish Asiatic Company. For a note, the Danes came to India in 1618 and in 1820 they founded their first trading post at Tranquebar (now known as Tharangambadi), ~120 Km south of Puducherry.