Lost Landmarks of Chennai

-- by Sriram V

The Esplanade(s) of Madras

The Esplanade today is a short stretch of road going south from NSC Bose Road and ending at the intersection of Sir T. Muthuswami Aiyar and North Fort Roads. It is architecturally a magnificent mile for it has the Raja Annamalai Manram, the South India Chamber of Commerce Building, Madras (now Chennai) House which was once Burma Shell Headquarters, the United India Insurance (now LIC) Building and Kuralagam. On the opposite side is the compound wall of the Law College, with the Yale Monument inside it. But a century or so ago, this alone was not the Esplanade. There was a Western Esplanade,a Northern Esplanade, a Benfield Esplanade, a Fort Esplanade, a Hospital Esplanade, an Evening Bazaar Esplanade and a Monument Esplanade. The history of these stretches is confusing to say the least and is made worse by the fact that those names and indeed those spaces do not exist any longer. This article is an attempt at unravelling our city’s long-lost Esplanades.

The Oxford English dictionary defines the Esplanade as a long, open, level area, typically beside the sea, along which people may walk for pleasure. It is also an open, level space separating a fortress from a town. Though Madras, and in particular George Town is very much by the sea, it is in the context of the second meaning that we need to look at our Esplanades. There were two significant decisions of the East India Company that gave rise to them.

The first of these concerned the demolition of old Black Town in the 1750s and encouraging those evicted to settle in Muthialpet and Peddanaickenpet, both of which became new Black Town (and from 1905 known as George Town). Old Black Town as we know, huddled by the side of the northern boundary of Fort St George and when it was emptied, the vast open space left behind became the Fort Esplanade. As is well known, a series of boundary pillars was erected in 1773 on the northern side of this area, to indicate that construction was forbidden to the south of it. Of these, the sole remnant is the pillar standing in the shadow of Dare House and tended to by the Murugappa Group. The road that came up between the pillars and Fort Esplanade was named Esplanade Road. It was also referred to as China Bazaar Road, both names being used at least till 1939. It was only in 1946 that this became NSC Bose Road. Interestingly, until the 1880s, it was also known as Popham’s Esplanade, owing to Popham’s Broadway (now Prakasam Salai) intersecting with it. Evening Bazaar Road leads off China Bazaar Road even today to the General Hospital and it would be reasonable to assume that this was the Evening Bazaar Esplanade.

Fort Esplanade, by its very definition, followed the contours of the Fort. It comprised an enormous parcel of land, bounded by what is today NSC Bose Road on the North, Evening Bazaar Road on the West, North Fort Road on the South and Rajaji Salai on the East. Within it today we have an astonishing collection of institutions and their buildings – the High Court, the Law College, the edifices on Esplanade Road listed earlier, the Broadway Bus Terminus, the Madras United Club, the Madras Medical College hostels, the Government Dental College and the Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission. It is interesting to reflect that until the 1880s, there was nothing here barring the Yale Monument aka Hynmer’s Obelisk and its neighbour, the now-vanished Powney family vault. It is no wonder therefore that the road that cut across the Esplanade by the Hynmer Obelisk came to be known as the Monument Esplanade. It was also known as Western Esplanade until the 1940s, as it runs along the western face of the fort.

If these Esplanades came about due to the decision to clear Old Black Town, another set came up owing to the scheme in the 1760s of building a protective wall around new Black Town. HD Love in his Vestiges of Old Madras refers to these as the Town Esplanades. The initial plans were ambitious – it was to be a sturdy barrier with seven gates but in the event only the western and northern portions came to be built. The west wall was along what is now Walltax Road/VO Chidambaranar Salai (as is well known the name itself came about because of the decision to fund the wall through a tax on residents) and the north wall along what is Old Jail Road/Ebrahim Sahib Salai. Old jail itself is because the north wall proved a convenient prison site and even today a part of it survives in the shape of a raised park, known as Madi Poonga. There is also a North Curtain street facing this, which is hardly known except to locals and indefatigable explorers.

Outside both the western and northern walls, ground was cleared for a width of six hundred yards (1800 feet/ half a kilometre) to provide a clear line of fire and these became the Northern and Western Esplanades of the Town. By the 19th century, with all threats of war having receded, these spaces were eyed for development. The southern half of Western Esplanade became the People’s Park and the northern half was made into Salt Cotaurs. It is interesting to note that many of the historic buildings that came to be built on People’s Park are actually standing on what was once Western Esplanade.

Chennai House and United India building on Esplanade.

Northern Esplanade was absorbed into Royapuram and today houses the Stanley Medical College and much of the Railway establishment there, including the historic station. It is significant to note that just as in the case of the Fort Esplanade, there was a line of boundary pillars here as well, the last survivors of which were found a decade ago in the Washermanpet Police Station and a jewellery shop!

We now come to the Benfield Esplanade and this is rather tricky to identify. The Administration Report of the Corporation of Madras dating to 1901/1902 states that a new road, “named Moore’s Road was opened across Benfield Esplanade, connecting Fraser’s Road near Popham’s Esplanade with the General Hospital Road near Memorial Hall at the cost of the South Indian Railway, owing to the great inconvenience felt by the public by the constant locking of the gates at the level crossing on Benfield Esplanade and General Hospital Road”. This seems to have been a short-lived thoroughfare for street directories of the 1930s do not make any mention of Moore’s Road here and the SIR level crossing is back in full force. However, it can be seen that the General Hospital Road was a short stretch of what is Periyar EVR Road, leading from the Fort to GH. Even today the name survives and this was probably the General Hospital Esplanade.

Benfield Esplanade was a nearby open expanse, named after that notoriously corrupt contractor Paul Benfield. In today’s terms it would mean much of Fort Station and the surrounding areas. What is today Sir T. Muthuswami Iyer Road was once known as Benfield’s Road. Muthuswami Bridge was constructed to allow easy access of traffic and prevent stoppages owing to the railway lines that run below it. The Fort’s Wallajah Gate opens on to this road and thus Benfield’s Road became Walajah Road as well. There were therefore two Walajah Roads in the city – the one on the Esplanade, which is now lost and the other in Triplicane which still survives. Most of us who research this city have equated the latter with Benfield Road and we could not have been more wrong. Paul Benfield, in life, in death, and after seems to have caused a lot of confusion.

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