Belvedere Estate
The Belvedere Estate consists of Belvedere House and the 30-acre (12 ha) grounds surrounding it, in which the National Library of India is housed, since 1948. It is located in Alipore, near the zoo, in Kolkata. Belvedere House was the former palace for the Viceroy of India and later the Governor of Bengal.
The Governor-General resided in Belvedere House, Kolkata until the early nineteenth century, when Government House (present Raj Bhavan) was constructed. In 1854, after the Governor-General moved out, the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal took up residence in Belvedere House. When the capital moved from Kolkata to Delhi in 1911, the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, who had hitherto resided in Belvedere House, was upgraded to a full governor and transferred to Government House.
History
In 1760, Mir Jafar Ali Khan, the Nawab of the province of Bengal, was compelled by the British East India Company to abdicate his throne at Murshidabad to Qasim Khan. Mir Jafar moved to Kolkata where he owned a large court house, and settled within the safety of English East India Company fortifications at Alipore. While he was in Kolkata, he built many buildings in the area and gifted Belvedere House to Warren Hastings.
After the Battle of Buxar in 1764 Hastings left for England. Hastings returned to Kolkata as governor in 1772 and to Belvedere House with Baroness Inhoff by his side. The grounds of Belvedere Estate were witness to a duel between Warren Hastings and his legal officer, Philip Francis, in 1780. Hastings sold Belvedere House to Major William Tolly for Rs. 60,000 in February 1780. Tolly died in 1784 and his family sold the property in 1802.
Although Hastings had lived at Belvedere House and, as such it had been recognised as the official residence of the Governors-General of the Presidency of Fort William, that distinction was transferred to Government House following the transfer of power from the East India Company to the British Government in 1858.
Frederick Halliday was appointed as the first Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal and, in 1858, he took up residence at Belvedere House. When the capital moved from Kolkata to Delhi in 1911, the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, who had hitherto resided in Belvedere House, was upgraded to a full governor and transferred to Government House.
After independence, in 1948, the National Library of India was transferred from The Esplanade to Belvedere House.
The complex now includes within it, two housing colonies built by the government, one being for National Library of India employees, and the other for central government employees. The main building is under the care of the Archaeological Survey of India. Presently the major portion of the Belvedere Estate houses National Library of India. While a small portion of Belvedere Estate is being used as residential complex for fairly senior Central Government employees and is known as '1, Belvedere Estate, Alipore Road', consists of 24 Type VI houses and 77 Type V houses, is under the control and maintenance by the CPWD ( Central Public Works Department) and provides very quiet and pollution free housing, with plenty of old trees and walking area, to the Central Government Employees.