- Type
- Fortress
- Built
- 1758 · 18th century
- Site origins
- 1696 per Wikidata – an earlier stronghold or first mention
- Location
- West Bengal, India
- Coordinates
- 22.5578°, 88.3381°
History
The East India Company built the first Fort William on the Hooghly in 1696–1706 and named it after King William III. In 1756 it was captured by Siraj ud-Daulah, Nawab of Bengal, and the confinement of prisoners in a cramped cell went down in history as the Black Hole of Calcutta. After the victory at Plassey in 1757, Robert Clive began a new and much larger fortress south of the town in 1758, completed in 1781. The forest around it was cleared and the ground levelled to give the defenders an open field of fire. The fort was never attacked and today houses the headquarters of the Indian Army's Eastern Command.
What to see
The fortress is an irregular octagon with bastions, a moat and gates, covering about 70 hectares. As an active military site it is open only on a limited basis, so most visitors see its ramparts and gates from outside. The Maidan around it – a huge green expanse in the middle of Kolkata – was once the field of fire and is now a place for walks and cricket matches.
Wikipedia article Wikidata Q2750027
Popularity: articles about this site in 22 Wikimedia projects (Wikipedia language editions and others).