St. Pauls Cathedral was built to replace St John's Church, which had become too small for Calcutta's (Kolkata) growing European community; by 1810 there were 4,000 British men and 300 British women in Bengal.
Noted for its Gothic architecture, it is apparently the largest cathedral in Kolkata and the first Episcopal Church in Asia. It was also the first cathedral built in the overseas territory of the British Empire. In 1762 the land on which the Cathedral stands had been described as a forest so wild that it harbored tigers, and, at first, it was regarded as "too far south" to serve as a location for the cathedral.
There was a massive earthquake in 1934 and the cathedral's steeple tower collapsed and was reconstructed to a new design along the lines of the Bell Harry tower of Canterbury Cathedral
Signs outside the cathedral forbade taking of 'any photos with a theme' and I took this to mean wedding shoots or publicity/advertising. However, when trying to photograph one of the exhibits I was told I couldn't use my camera at all ... several people were taking pictures with their mobile phones and didn't get reprimanded.
There was a lot of interesting information available but we couldn't photograph it and the 'souvenir' shop there didn't have any literature or books for sale.
With David watching my back I did get a sneaky photo of a letter written by Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury ... well, Canterbury Cathedral is practically on our doorstep back home in England.
Once again, by visiting this attraction in the morning the sun was fierce and high in the sky so most of the photos are backlit ...
Its an attractive building but could do with a clean
and the letter from the Archbishop of Canterbury
Knowing we had an early start tomorrow, 0925hrs flight to Mumbai, we opted for an early meal out so we could sort our bags and everything this evening and I could catch up on the Blog posts.
When we got back our 'hostess' was waiting to give me a gift. She had a pile of H&M ladies T shirts with the logo of the serviced apartments on them and invited me to choose one for myself which I thought was a nice touch.
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