Amir Mahal is the official residence of the titular

Nawab of Arcot The Carnatic Sultanate was a kingdom in South India between about 1690 and 1855, and was under the legal purview of the Nizam of Hyderabad, until their demise. They initially had their capital at Arcot in the present-day Indian state of Tamil N ...

and his family. Situated in

Royapettah Royapettah is a neighbourhood of Chennai, India. Location Royapettah is located at the central part of the city of Chennai, with an elevation of 9 m (29 ft.) above mean sea level. The neighbourhood comes under Teynampet Zone (numbe ...

, a neighbourhood of

Chennai Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

, India, it was constructed in

Indo-Saracenic Indo-Saracenic architecture (also known as Indo-Gothic, Mughal-Gothic, Neo-Mughal, or Hindoo style) was a revivalist architectural style mostly used by British architects in India in the later 19th century, especially in public and government ...

style in 1798, the Amir Mahal has been the residence of the family since 1876. The Prince of Arcot, Nawab Mohammed Abdul Ali, lives in the palace with his family.

History

The Amir Mahal was constructed in 1798 by the

British 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 Southea ...

to house administrative offices of the company. When the Carnatic kingdom was annexed by the Company in 1855 as per the

Doctrine of Lapse The doctrine of lapse was a policy of annexation initiated by the East India Company in the Indian subcontinent about the princely states, and applied until the year 1858, the year after Company rule was succeeded by the British Raj under the ...

, the

Chepauk Palace Chepauk Palace was the official residence of the Nawab of Arcot from 1768 to 1855. It is situated in the neighbourhood of Chepauk in Chennai, India and is constructed in the Indo-Saracenic style of architecture. History By the end of the Carn ...

, the official residence of the Nawabs, was auctioned off and purchased by the Madras government. The Nawab moved to a building called Shadi Mahal on Triplicane High Road and lived there. However, the British felt that the Shadi Mahal was "not a place fit for the residence of the Prince of Arcot" and granted him the Amir Mahal in

. Robert Chrisholm was given the task of converting the office building into a palace. In 1876, the Nawab moved in with his family into the Amir Mahal. The mahal has since been the residence of the Nawabs of Arcot. Today, Amir Mahal has hidden itself inside the city's chaos and rushed daily life. Rarely known to the locales themselves, this place continues to function as a residential complex. While visitors are rarely allowed inside, it still has entertained several political leaders and celebrities including the Oscar awardee AR Rahaman.

Notes

Royal residences in India Palaces in Tamil Nadu Houses completed in 1798 Buildings and structures in Chennai Heritage sites in Chennai {{India-palace-stub

History

See also

Notes