Ahmednagar - City With 11 Gates

Ahmednagar - City With 11 Gates

Ahmadnagar was a walled city with 11 gates. Walls around are still seen at some places but in a dilapidated condition and a few gates still exist. In what follows is reproduced an interesting description of these walls and gates as it appears in the old Ahmadnagar District Gazetteer published in 1884:-

" The city walls built of stone and mud masonry below and white mud masonry above are twelve to thirteen feet high, six feet broad, and about three miles round. The walls were built about 1631 (H. 1042) by Sarjekhan, one of Shah Jahan's (1627-1658) nobles. The city is entered by eleven gates, the Jhenda and the Bava Bangali gates in the east, the Malivada or Railway and Fergusson gates in the south, the Nepti and Nalegaon gates in the west, and the Delhi, Tophkhana, Sarjapur, Mangal and King gates in the north. The Jhenda or flag gate is eleven feet wide by seventeen high. 

The wall, which stretches on both sides, forms the wings of the doorway and is built with stones four feet from the ground, and for the remaining eight feet with burnt bricks and mud masonry, pointed with mortar. Inside a stone-stair leads up the wall to the flat top of the gateway to command a view of the ground in front when the gate was shut in times of danger. The Bava Bangali gate, 335 yards south of the Jhenda gate, is eleven feet wide by fourteen feet high. Except for two side bastions of stone below and brick and mud above, it is built like the Jhenda gate.

About 1,035 yards south-west of the Bava Bangali gate, an ornamented structure about 12'6" wide by 19'6" high, is the Fergusson gate built for easy access to the municipal market by the Municipality in 1881 and called after Sir James Fergusson, Bart., K. C. M. G., Governor of Bombay. About 300 yards west of the Fergusson gate is the Malivada gate, eleven and a quarter feet wide by thirteen feet nine inches high, with an open archway somewhat in the Gothic style, built of ashlar masonry. The gate has two strong stone side bastions, each about seventeen feet high. The parapets of the bastions which are about three feet high and are furnished with gun-holes are of burnt bricks and lime. The parapet over the flat part of the archway has openings for guns and is ascended by a stone-stair. The doors are of teakwood, about four inches thick, and like all the other gates have a small window to pass through at night, when the doors are closed from nine to five in the morning. Malivada is the strongest of the eleven Ahmadnagar gates. Close to the west of the doorway let into the wall in the centre of an arched recess specially built for it, an oblong inscribed black marble tablet, surmounted by an antlered stag's head and the Gaelic motto of the regiment, contains an inscription in memory of the officers and men of the 78th Highlanders who fell at the storming of the city on the 8th of August 1803.

To the right or east of the gateway close to the city wall is a plastered tomb (8' X 4' X 4') built in memory of an officer of the First Regiment of Madras Native Infantry who fell on the same occasion. The tomb which is kept in repair by the Public Works Department is enclosed by a wooden railing (14'6" X 8'6" X 7'8"), with square wooden bars fixed at six-inch intervals. The Nepti gate, 894 yards north-west of the Malivada gate, is nine feet wide by seventeen feet high and is much like the Bangali gate. The Nalegaon gate, 363 yards north of the Nepti gate, is nine feet wide by ten feet high, and is much like the Jhenda gate except that it has no bastions. The Delhi gate, 406 yards north-east of the Nalegaon gate, is twelve feet wide by fourteen feet high and has an open archway over the door, as in the Malivada gate. Like the Bangali gate it has two bastions of stone below and mud above. The Tophkhana gate, 359 yards north-east of the Delhi gate, is 10'6" wide by 12'6" high; it is like the Bangali and Nepti gates with bastions. The Sarjapur gate, 572 yards east of the Tophkhana gate, is eleven feet wide by fifteen feet high and is much like the Tophkhana gate. The Mangal gate, 410 yards north-west of the Sarjapur gate and 440 yards east of the Jhenda gate, is 10'6" wide by 14'6" high and is much like the Sarjapur gate. Between the Sarjapur and Mangal gates a small gate, three feet wide and six feet high, has been opened by the municipality for easy access to the municipal beef market. About 132 yards east of the Mangal gate near the Brahman cistern is the King gate about twelve feet wide opened by the Municipality in 1881. This is an old gate said to have been closed after the British occupation of Ahmadnagar (1803) to stop disputes between the people of the city and the privates of the Native Infantry Regiment which was stationed outside and close to this gateway. Besides these eleven two new gateways ten feet square have been opened in the city wall near the mission chapel for the convenience of the American Mission and one for the Collector's bungalow.".

Of the eleven gates, viz., Jhenda gate, Bava Bangali gate, Fergusson gate, Maliwada gate, Nepti gate, Nalegaon gate, Delhi gate, Tophkhana gate, Sarjapur gate, Mangal gate and King gate only Malivada gate and Delhi gate are still in existence and those have been declared as historical monuments. Other gates have been demolished under the road-widening schemes.