The Lucknow Album/Tara Kothe or Star House

by Darogha Ubbas Alli

TARA KOTHE OR STAR HOUSE.

View No. 18.

The reason why this was called the Star House is, that it was intended for an observatory. It forms a kind of setoff to the general extravagance for which the Kings of Oudh were notorious. Nusseer-ood-deen Hyder had this house constructed under European superintendence, and provided with astronomical instruments of value, but, from the observations taken, nothing in the service of science seems to have resulted : the instruments were all demolished by the mutineers, and the King always thought more of astrology than of astronomy. So much for the enlightenment of the Monarchs of Ouclh.

There was a native of Fyzabad known as Moulvie Ahmed-ollah Shah, who always had a drum beaten before him whereever he went, and was consequently called " Dunka Shah ;" he made the Khoorshaid Munzil his Head Quarters, and the Moulvie being of high reputation amongst the Mahomedans, the house soon became a sort of Baradurree for parliamentary meetings : however, after the mutiny, finding the country too hot to hold him, he disappeared, and the house became a rebel stronghold ; this was stormed and captured by Sir Colin Campbell's force in 1857, the high wall that surrounded it, was demolished, and there now appears, on its mound, the handsome building known as the Bank of Bengal.

 

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On the southern side is an extensive space called the " Place Road," and close by, on the right, stands a very modest unpretending looking obelisk. This is the—