Landour
Landour
Landaur | |
---|---|
town | |
PIN | 248179 |
Vehicle registration | UK |
Website | uk |
[1] |
Landour, a small
Location and climate
Landour is located in the Lower
If one travels the 290 km (180 mi) to Landour from New Delhi by train or bus, a switch at Dehradun is needed. Buses and taxis, and even "shared taxis", are easily available. There are also direct buses from New Delhi, and one can easily negotiate with taxis at any of New Delhi's railway stations or at the Delhi airport. One can also fly from Delhi in just 40 min to Jolly Grant Airport east of Dehradun, which saves a lot of time, but it takes another 90 minutes to drive up to Landour from the airport.
East of Landour lie the small hamlet of
Early history
Landour is within
Landour was initially built by and for the
The first permanent building in all of Mussoorie-Landour was also built in Landour in 1825. The house was built by Captain Frederick Young, the "discoverer" of Mussoorie, who was also the Commandant of the first Gurkha (or Gorkha) battalion raised by the British after prevailing in the Gurkha War. Young's house, "Mullingar" (hinting at his Irish blood), was the family home during the hot summers in the plains. Young's Dehradun-based battalion, then called the Sirmour (or Sirmoor) Rifles, was initially raised in a Gurkha POW camp in Paonta Sahib in Sirmour District – hence the name. The huge L-shaped building, with an outsized courtyard inside the bend of the "L", sits prominently atop Mullingar Hill in Landour Cantonment.
Among distinguished house guests at Mullingar in the early decades were Emily Eden (see below). Mullingar was expanded, changed hands several times and by the early 20th century had become the Mullingar Estate Hotel. During World War II, Mullingar was leased by the army to house the overflow of convalescing soldiers from the sanatorium, given the huge increase in war-related injuries. The hotel was bursting at the seams, as a number of British civilian evacuees from Burma, the Andamans, Manipur & Nagaland, which were occupied by Japanese forces, were also housed in Mullingar before being shipped out elsewhere. Mullingar finally fell into disuse after 1947 when Britons began to leave India, with the army already having vacated it after the postwar demobilization of 1945–46. The building soon fell into disrepair, occupied largely if not entirely by squatters (see below). A number of the families now living in Mullingar are Tibetan. Prayer flags flutter in the wind every day, and Losar celebrations are held in the courtyard every year.
The legal distinction between Mussoorie and Landour did not arise until the 1860s, when after the historic events of 1857 cantonments were properly surveyed and formalized. In particular, control of the ridge-lines and water sources was crucial, given rising British anxieties over their grip on India. The defensibility of garrisons was critical, especially in hill stations with large European populations. The Cantonments Act of 1924 further clarified the rights of the property owners; new construction of any kind, especially of private homes, was virtually banned. Conservation was also a key goal, given the excesses of the 19th century (see below); the Act clearly states that title to all trees remains with the army, hence there has been no logging in Landour since in over a century, as can be seen. By definition, all non-military and non-governmental buildings built after 1924 are 'illegal'. Therefore, there are few 'modern' homes in Landour, though renovations and reconstruction of pre-existing houses are permitted. Thanks to the 1924 Act, Landour Cantonment is—unlike Landour Bazaar—largely free of the commercialization that can be seen in much of Mussoorie proper, especially along the 'main drag' of Mall Road where tourists throng in the summer.
Racially, Landour was distinctly more European than Mussoorie. It was no accident. First, the army presence (albeit non-regimental) offered an excuse to 'keep out' Indians. Second,
Indeed, the events of 1857 led to a spurt in the European population of Mussoorie-Landour, with many families leaving the 'exposed' towns of the Gangetic Plain. Among the Britons who thus moved to Landour were the parents of Jim Corbett. Both had lost their spouses, and would meet and remarry in Landour (see below). His mother had moved from Meerut, where her first husband had been killed in action in 1857. Thousands of Europeans, mostly Britons, are buried in the twin towns. The Cantonment has adjacent Protestant and Catholic cemeteries, though due to overcrowding in the former, the latter has of late become non-denominational – they are managed by the same committee. In 1901, the town had a population of 1720, which climbed up to 3700 in the summers, when the heat of the Indian plains became unbearable.[5]
Climate data for Landour, Mussoorie (1971-2000, extremes 1901-1987) | |||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
Record high °C (°F) | 21.1 (70.0) |
23.3 (73.9) |
26.1 (79.0) |
29.1 (84.4) |
34.4 (93.9) |
31.7 (89.1) |
29.4 (84.9) |
25.6 (78.1) |
27.2 (81.0) |
28.1 (82.6) |
25.0 (77.0) |
23.3 (73.9) |
34.4 (93.9) |
Mean daily maximum °C (°F) | 10.3 (50.5) |
11.2 (52.2) |
15.7 (60.3) |
20.6 (69.1) |
23.0 (73.4) |
23.2 (73.8) |
20.9 (69.6) |
20.5 (68.9) |
19.8 (67.6) |
18.6 (65.5) |
15.5 (59.9) |
12.7 (54.9) |
17.6 (63.7) |
Mean daily minimum °C (°F) | 2.8 (37.0) |
3.4 (38.1) |
7.1 (44.8) |
11.5 (52.7) |
14.3 (57.7) |
15.6 (60.1) |
15.0 (59.0) |
14.8 (58.6) |
13.6 (56.5) |
11.1 (52.0) |
7.6 (45.7) |
4.5 (40.1) |
10.0 (50.0) |
Record low °C (°F) | −5.0 (23.0) |
−6.7 (19.9) |
−2.5 (27.5) |
−1.5 (29.3) |
3.7 (38.7) |
4.1 (39.4) |
11.7 (53.1) |
7.4 (45.3) |
1.3 (34.3) |
2.6 (36.7) |
−2.1 (28.2) |
−3.9 (25.0) |
−6.7 (19.9) |
Average rainfall mm (inches) | 49.9 (1.96) |
65.2 (2.57) |
73.1 (2.88) |
56.2 (2.21) |
69.0 (2.72) |
200.9 (7.91) |
629.6 (24.79) |
548.0 (21.57) |
264.5 (10.41) |
55.5 (2.19) |
14.9 (0.59) |
10.1 (0.40) |
2,036.8 (80.19) |
Average rainy days | 4.1 | 5.0 | 5.1 | 3.8 | 5.0 | 9.5 | 22.4 | 21.3 | 11.6 | 2.7 | 0.9 | 1.3 | 92.7 |
Average relative humidity (%) (at 17:30 IST )
|
78 | 75 | 66 | 56 | 58 | 70 | 85 | 87 | 85 | 78 | 75 | 75 | 74 |
Source: [7] |
Civic administration
Since Landour is a cantonment town, it is administered by the cantonment board which is under the control of the Ministry of Defence. The Station Commander of the Cantonment is the ex-officio president of the board, and an officer an officer of the IDES or Defence Estates Organisation is the chief executive officer who is also the member-secretary of the board.[10] The President of Landour Cantonment Board is Brig. SN Singh while the CEO is Shri Abhishek Rathour, IDES.[11] Councillors, or representatives of citizens, are elected from 6 wards in Landour.[12]
A few local facts
Like Mussoorie and Dehradun, Landour has long been a center of secondary education. The towns have had several schools and "orphanages" for both European and mixed-race
There are under 100 detached private homes in the Cantonment, and under 200 buildings overall. The non-residential buildings belong to either the military, or to the state-owned broadcasters Doordarshan and All India Radio, who have repeater stations atop Lal Tibba hill, at over 7,700 ft. the highest point in all of Mussoorie-Landour. The transmitters are mounted on Landour's answer to Paris, an Eiffel-inspired orange-and-white tower that is the most recognizable feature in all of Landour. Lal Tibba was also known as Depot Hill, referring to the convalescent depot. Nearby Sisters Bazaar likewise referred to the nurses' dormitory at the location; nurses are still addressed as 'Sister' in the Subcontinent, from a time in the 19th century when most nurses were Anglican, Methodist or Catholic nuns. The Cantonment is also home to the well-known Landour Community Hospital, founded by American missionaries. At the time of its founding in 1931 it was one of the first good non-military hospitals in the region. It has been run by the Emmanuel Hospital Association, an indigenous Christian health and development agency, since 1981, and continues to provide affordable (or free) medical care to the people of Landour and the surrounding hills.
Among natural features in the area, the local peaks are the most prominent. ('Tibba' is a local word for hill/peak). Other than "Old" Lal Tibba and Landour hill themselves (which lie within the Cantonment), there is the hunched, heavily forested Pari Tibba (also called Fairy Hill or Witches' Hill), lurking due south of Woodstock School and due east of Wynberg-Allen School. Once a private hunting estate of the ruling family of
There are no commercial hotels in Landour Cantonment, and only a handful of rudimentary, quasi-legal "guest houses". Landour Bazaar has fewer than 10 equally rudimentary hotels, none of which would merit a single star, with all of them together having perhaps 125 rooms. (Mussoorie proper has over a hundred hotels at various price points, though). There were never any entertainments in Landour – all the Raj-era theaters, cinemas, dance halls, skating rinks and public gardens were in Mussoorie. Accordingly, the decibel level was – and is – markedly lower (thanks to the military's zoning rules) than in Mussoorie, where it is ever-rising thanks to the explosion in middle-class tourism.
Americana in the Himalaya
Aside from the obvious British legacy, Landour has a thick vein of Americana too, with American missionaries having had a strong footing in the town since the 1830s, when the policy changes introduced by the English administrator
Ecology and environment
Landour is for the most part (unlike largely deforested Mussoorie) carpeted by old-growth forests of
Landour offers striking views of the
Birdlife is outstanding in its breadth of species; over 350 species may comfortably be seen at various elevations over the course of the year, including both
Deforestation itself dates from British times. There was also an early myth that "Indian forests are full of germs, which European constitutions cannot take";
Another local menace is non-
The citizenry
The year-round population of the Cantonment is under 1,200, and if you include Landour Bazaar it is under 4,000. The summertime population of Mussoorie triples to perhaps 90,000 with the influx of budget tourists (and hotel staff, shopkeepers, tradesmen etc. to service them), but the population of Landour Bazaar only goes up by perhaps 1,000, given the paucity of hotels. But the summertime population of the Cantonment goes up by only 500, if that; there is no place for outsiders to stay. Indeed, the weekend population of Mussoorie proper too now spurts—year-round—to near-summertime levels, given the improvements in India's highways and the ever-rising numbers of private cars.
The ethnic mix of Landour has changed dramatically since 1947, and since the 1970s–1980s due to the departure of most missionaries, and also via the recent Indian economic boom. Many of the shopkeepers and small-business owners of Landour Bazaar and the Cantonment are descended from bania merchants who came from far afield in the 19th century—as far away as Gujarat and Bombay—to service the then-growing Anglo-American community.
Demographics
According to the 2001 India census,[13] Landour had an "official" population of roughly 3,500. Males constitute 55% of the population and females 45%. Landour has an average literacy rate of 78%, higher than the national average of 59.5%: male literacy is 85%, and female literacy is 70%. In Landour, 8% of the population is under 6 years of age. However, these statistics do not account for the transient population of the Cantonment, which includes military personnel on study tours, or the "second home" crowd that owns many of the properties in Landour Cantonment. Nor does it account for the student population at Woodstock or the language school.
Architecture
Architecturally speaking, Landour is akin to other Raj-era hill stations of Northern India. Since Mussoorie-Landour never rivalled
About the only "architecturally significant" building was The Castle on the aptly named Castle Hill, now part of
A prominent local landmark was the Clock Tower at the start of Landour Bazaar. It was of little architectural merit, but informally marked the boundary between Landour and Mussoorie (others say it is the former Picture Palace movie theater a bit lower down). Demolished in 2011, the tower is expected to be rebuilt sometime in the future, having been delayed by local political wrangling.
Landour has four Raj-era churches, two of them distinctly Indo-
Residents
Landour also has an outsized presence on the cultural map of India, its most famous resident being the
Landour was home in the 1850s and 1860s to the multi-talented John Lang, seen as the "first Australian novelist". Lang's 1864 grave was rediscovered by Ruskin Bond in Camel's Back Cemetery in Mussoorie and was restored by the Australian High Commission in Delhi (which also has a bolthole nearby).
Other
Sources
- Landour Days: A Writer's Journal by Ruskin Bond. Penguin, 2002. ISBN 0-670-91170-4.
- Resorts of the Raj, by Vikram Bhatt (1998).
- Hill Stations of India, by Gillian Wright (1991).
- Mussoorie: Jewel of the Hills, by Ruskin Bond (1996).
- Mussoorie & Landour: Days of Wine and Roses, by Ruskin Bond (1992).
- Birding in the Doon Valley, by Nikhil Devasar, S.B. Dutta & Santanu Sarkar [Editor] (2012).
- Plain Tales from the Raj, by Charles Allen (1975).
- Magic Mountains: Hill Stations and the British Raj (1996).
- All the Way to Heaven: An American Boyhood in the Himalaya, by Stephen Alter (1998).
- Raj: The Making and Unmaking of British India, by Lawrence James (2000).
- Memsahibs: The Women of Victorian India, by Pat Barr (1976).
- Footloose in the Himalayas, by Bill Aitken (2003).
- Touching Upon the Himalaya, by Bill Aitken & Geeta Kapadia (2004).
- Stones of Empire, by Jan Morris (1995).
- India Unveiled, by Bob Arnett (2006).
- Knowing Dil Das, by Joe Alter (1999).
- The Great Hill Stations of Asia, by Barbara Crossette (1999).
- Hill Resorts of the U.P. Himalaya, by Nutan Tyagi (1991).
- Farewell the Winterline, by Stan Brush (2002).
References
- ^ http://www.whereincity.com/india/pincode/uttarakhand/dehradun.htm
- ^ "Man on the mountain - Times of India". articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com. Archived from the original on 24 December 2012. Retrieved 17 January 2022.
- ^ Jalil, Rakhshanda (14 July 2012). "Mussoorie blues". The Hindu. Retrieved 1 March 2017.
- ^ "History – LANDOUR CANTONMENT BOARD". landour.cantt.gov.in. Retrieved 28 October 2023.
- ^ a b Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 16 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 162.
- ISSN 0971-8257. Retrieved 28 October 2023.
- ^ https://web.archive.org/web/20200215220604/http://imdpune.gov.in/library/public/Climatological%20Normals%20%281971-2000%29.pdf
- ^ "Station: Mussoorie Climatological Table 1971–2000" (PDF). Climatological Normals 1971–2000. India Meteorological Department. October 2011. pp. 533–534. Archived from the original (PDF) on 15 February 2020. Retrieved 31 March 2020.
- ^ "Extremes of Temperature & Rainfall for Indian Stations (Up to 2012)" (PDF). India Meteorological Department. December 2016. p. M227. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 February 2020. Retrieved 31 March 2020.
- ^ "DGDE".
- ^ "CBLandour".
- ^ "Landour, Uttarakhand | Writer on the hill".
- ^ "Census of India 2001: Data from the 2001 Census, including cities, villages and towns (Provisional)". Census Commission of India. Archived from the original on 16 June 2004. Retrieved 1 November 2008.
- ^ Landour Candour The Economic Times, 9 March 2008.
- The Telegraph, Calcutta, 23 April 2005.
- ^ "Walk the Talk with Vishal Bhardwaj". You Tube. NDTV. Archived from the original on 21 December 2021. Retrieved 28 July 2015.