CALCUTTA: PAST AND PRESENT
in size, as a portion of the building was pulled down about this period, when the erection of the church led to alterations in the neighbourhood, and Church Lane was widened by the addition of a strip of land taken from the old burial-ground. The house Mrs. Fay occupied, the "Old Post Office," still stands, and its windows overlooking the churchyard still lead to complaints, and disagreement with the Church authorities.
In Hastings Street, Mrs. Fay was a neighbour of her patroness Mrs. Hastings, whose "town house," which she had occupied in earlier years as Mrs. Imhoff, was at 7, Hastings Street, where some ancient punkahs, quaintly painted in crimson and gold, still remain, stranded waifs of the tide of fashion which once filled the old house with its flood.
But to return to Alipore and Belvedere. One of the earliest, if not the earliest mention of the house after Mrs. Fay's mistaken use of the name, is in the account of the duel between Hastings and Francis in August, 1780, when, after the encounter, the wounded Francis was carried to Belvedere, the house of Major Tolly, or Foley, as it has been erroneously read. Major Tolly was an engineer officer who obtained a grant of the Govindpore Creek, or Nullah, which
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