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CHAPTER IV

PUBLIC BUILDINGS

Calcutta buildings in the eighteenth century—Government House—The Council House—Court House—Hospital—Burying-ground—Old Church and the Rev. Kiernander—The New Fort and Hastings.

WITH the triumphant reversal of fortune which followed Plassey, the necessity for keeping the English factory at Calcutta within the Fort was at an end. The town at once began to expand, and the European quarter to spread. At first, as was natural, new houses were built along the roads which already existed, chief among them "the Avenue"—Bow Bazar,—and the pilgrim road, Chowringhee, from which they diverged into Dhurrumtolla and Jaun Bazar. The wide spaces between these main lines were covered with villages, fields, tanks and watercourses, which year by year gave way before the advancing town, till at last the only traces of the old order that remained were to be found in the names of different divisions of the town, and in the bustees which in ever-dwindling

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