খিদিরপুর ব্রিজ, কলকাতা, ১৮২৬
The Kidderpore Bridge,the earliest stone-and-iron suspension bridge in India, lay at the end of the Course – the road that crossed the Maidan. It was the oldest road on the Maidan and was described in 1768 as being made to take the air. But, as an old song goes, ‘those who frequented it swallowed ten mouthfuls of dust for one of fresh air’. The road, however, is still one of the airiest and pleasantest drives in Calcutta, extended from the Cocked Hat, or কুঁকরো হাটা, to the Kidderpore Bridge, on the north, built up to the canal excavated by Colonel Tolly at his own expense, He reimbursed himself for this toil by a bazar or ganj at the place which still bears his name, Tolly ganj, and by tolls on crafts making use of his canal. in 1775.
The canal, formerly known as the Govindpore Creek, was, in fact, part of the old bed of the Ganges. It now runs into the Circular Canal, which again communicates with the Hooghly, forming the great inlet for country boats bringing produce from the Sunderbunds and the eastern districts of Bengal. The Nullah is here joined by a bridge once known by the name of Edward Surman, the head of the Embassy to Delhi in 1717, but now called Kidderpore Bridge. The bridge was built in 1826 and was the earliest stone-and-iron suspension bridge in India.
Kidderpore, Alipore and Bhowanipore were three suburbs of Calcutta, south of the Maidan. They were set apart from it by the canal known as Tolly’s Nullah (a canal), which necessitated the building of such bridges. It is traversed by the Calcutta ways, which run from here direct to the Esplanade on at the corner of Dhurrumtollah.
The view of the Kidderpore Bridge above is from a hand-coloured photograph print belonging to the Frederick Fiebig Collection: Views of Calcutta and Surrounding Districts, published in 1851. The inset photographic view of the ‘Tolly Nullah’ is also by Frederich Fiebig
PURONOKOLKATA 