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).

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 1620, and founded their first trading post at Tranquebar (now known as Tharangambadi), ~120 Km south of Puducherry.