Adham Khan’s mausoleum is perched in the centre of Mehrauli, opposite the bus station. It houses an unremarkable and unmarked tomb that has a tale of jealousy and dastardly murder as its backdrop. Adham Khan was the son of the wet nurse to Jalaluddin Muhammad, son of the emperor Humayun. Jalaluddin later became the emperor Akbar. A wet nurse was...

Once past the Bu Halima gate, (where you buy your ticket for Humayun’s Tomb), you can leave the temptation of gawking at the main attraction for a while and take a side trip through another gate to the right. This leads to the North Gate of the Arab Serai and a grassed compound containing Afsarwala’s Tomb and an accompanying mosque....

A Coronation Durbar  was a huge propaganda event  drawing together the princes of India with the ruling British administration to celebrate the crowning of a new Emperor of India. This was, of course, the reigning British monarch who was represented in India by the Viceroy. In 1911 the newly crowned King George V with Queen Mary attended his own coronation durbar...

Although he had palaces in Siri and Mehrauli, Feroz Shah Tughlaq decided in 1354 to build a new city. He chose the banks of the River Yamuna presumably for the water supply and this became Ferozabad, the fifth city of Delhi. It was probably abandoned by the Lodi Sultans in the late 1490s. Little remains as much was dismantled for...

Humayun was an unlucky fellow in some respects. Only the second Mughal emperor of India, he was chucked off his throne by an Afghan warlord, Sher Shah, after only a ten-year reign. Then for fifteen years he fretted in Kabul, Afghanistan. After Sher Shah’s death there was a squabble over the succession to the imperial throne and Humayun seized his...

Jama Masjid, meaning Friday Mosque, is the largest mosque in India with a courtyard that can hold 25,000. This was another of Shah Jahan’s building commissions designed in the classic amalgam of Muslim and Hindu architecture of the period. It was completed in 1656 AD. The mosque has three gates – east, north and south. The eastern gateway of the...

Looking very much like a gothic spire lacking a church, this monument in red sandstone was built by the British after the 1857 Uprising. It was erected ‘In memory of the officers and soldiers, British and Native of the Delhi Field Force who were killed in action or died of wounds or disease between 30th May and 20th September 1857’....

The Qutb Minar complex houses several restored ancient monuments within parkland. The soaring Qutb Minar dominates the skyline. These monuments were built between 1193 AD and 1368 AD on the ruins of Lal Kot. This was the citadel built by the Rajput ruler Anangpal in 739 AD and added to as the Qila Rai Pithoraby a later ruler, Prithviraj Chauhan. Prithviraj was the...

At the western end of Rajpath, its large dome just poking above the horizon, is the President’s Palace or Rashtrapati Bhavan. This immense building, more extensive than the Palace of Versailles, was built by the British to be the Viceroy’s Palace. The viceroy represented the British Emperor/Empress of India and ruled in his or her name. Accordingly the palace was...

This is a surprising feature to be found right in the heart of modern New Delhi, but it predates the new city by about 500 years and would have been used by the rural villages that once populated this area. Baolis are a feature of northern India and were built to deal with seasonal fluctuations in water supply, from the...

Vijay Chowk (chowk meaning crossing) leads down past the Secretariat and into Rajpath. As you descend the incline you’ll notice that Rashtrapati Bhavan (president’s palace) starts to disappear – its large bulbous dome sinking into the horizon. There was a big, big argument between the two architects Sir Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker over this. The original plan was to...

When the emperor, Shah Jahan, commissioned the construction of Shahjahanabad he had it designed as a defensible citadel with massive walls. Entrance into the city was through several guarded gates most named after the direction in which they faced. Of the 14 original gates only four fully survive; Kashmere Gate facing the northwest and Kashmir, Delhi Gate facing the older...

Divided into a North Block and a South Block these two massive rows of pink and yellow sandstone buildings house the administration of the Indian government. They are built in the Indo-Saracenic style that the British used in building their new capital. Architecturally they are mirror images but the tall porchway entrance to the North Block carries the following engraved...

The Mehrauli Archaeological Park encompasses a number of monuments, tombs and historical places within a pleasant parkland. To get there exit Qutb Minar Metro station onto Anuvrat Marg and turn right. Walk about 500m and just after some plant nurseries opposite there’s a small lane marked by a large board displaying the park’s regulations. The pathways and directions are well...