Bombay Castle (also Casa da Orta) is one of the oldest defensive structures built in the city of

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the secon ...

(formerly Bombay). The current castle is a structure built by the

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

on the site of the ''Manor House'' built by a Portuguese nobleman Garcia de Orta. Orta had leased the island of Bombay from the

King of Portugal This is a list of Portuguese monarchs who ruled from the establishment of the Kingdom of Portugal, in 1139, to the deposition of the Portuguese monarchy and creation of the Portuguese Republic with the 5 October 1910 revolution. Through the ...

between 1554 and 1570. The castle was built of local blue Kurla stone and red

laterite Laterite is both a soil and a rock type rich in iron and aluminium and is commonly considered to have formed in hot and wet tropical areas. Nearly all laterites are of rusty-red coloration, because of high iron oxide content. They develop by ...

stone from the

Konkan The Konkan ( kok, कोंकण) or Kokan () is a stretch of land by the western coast of India, running from Damaon in the north to Karwar in the south; with the Arabian Sea to the west and the Deccan plateau in the east. The hinterland ...

region to the south. The islands came under the hands of the English in 1665, and the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Sou ...

took possession of the castle in 1668. Over the next ten years, they built a defensive structure around the manor. Between 1716 and 1723, a wall was built around the developing town. Although the wall was demolished in 1865 after the city grew rapidly, fragments still exist in some areas. Few records of the original Portuguese castle remain and historians are trying to piece together the original location of the manor. Two gates of the manor are located within ''

INS Angre INS ''Angre'' is a "stone frigate" (shore establishment) of the Indian Navy in Mumbai. It is the shore-based logistics and administrative support establishment of the Western Naval Command. It is also the base depot ship of the Command and is t ...

'', a

naval A navy, naval force, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations and related functions. It inclu ...

station in

South Mumbai South Mumbai, colloquially SoBo from South Bombay in Anglo-Indian English, administratively the Mumbai City District, is the city centre and the southernmost precinct of Greater Bombay. It extends from Colaba to Mahim and Sion neighbour ...

. A

sundial A sundial is a horological device that tells the time of day (referred to as civil time in modern usage) when direct sunlight shines by the apparent position of the Sun in the sky. In the narrowest sense of the word, it consists of a f ...

thought to date back to the Portuguese era is also present. This sundial does not mark out the 12 hours of a day, but rather marks out certain periods that the people of the time deemed important. The main building within the castle was the Governor's House, in which

Gerald Aungier Gerald Aungier (1640 – 30 June 1677) was the 2nd Governor of Bombay. He was made the president of the Surat factory and the governor of Bombay in 1669, which posts he held until his death in 1677. He was responsible for the initial growth o ...

, the second

Governor of Bombay Until the 18th century, Bombay consisted of seven islands separated by shallow sea. These seven islands were part of a larger archipelago in the Arabian sea, off the western coast of India. The date of city's founding is unclear—historians tr ...

used to stay. The residence was later moved to

Parel Parel ( ISO: Paraḷ, pronunciation: əɾəɭ is a neighbourhood of Mumbai. Parel used to have a number of textile mills, but these have been replaced by commercial office space development. History Originally, Parel was a separate islan ...

and then to

Malabar Hill Malabar Hill (ISO: Malabār Hill ələbaːɾ is a hillock and upmarket residential neighbourhood in South Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. Malabar Hill is the most exclusive residential area in Mumbai. It is home to several business tycoons and ...

over the next two centuries. The current building houses the offices of the

Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief Western Naval Command The Western Naval Command is one of the three command–level formations of the Indian Navy. It is headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra. As the senior–most of the three formations, the command is responsible for the all naval forces in the ...

References

External links

History of Mumbai

History & Geography of Mumbai

Main Portuguese Gate to Bombay Castle
at ''

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''. {{Forts in India Castles in India British forts Portuguese structures in Mumbai Portuguese forts in India Properties of the East India Company British colonial architecture in India 1550s establishments in Portuguese India 1660s in British India 1670s in British India 17th-century forts in India