Cooch Behar Palace

Cooch Behar Palace, also called the Victor Jubilee Palace, stands in the town of Cooch Behar in northern West Bengal, the former capital of the princely state of Cooch Behar ruled by the Koch dynasty. The palace was built in 1887 under Maharaja Nripendra Narayan, who married the daughter of the reformer Keshab Chandra Sen and was a notable figure of the period. It was designed by the British engineer Major Ponsford, who modelled it on the Renaissance style of St Peter's Basilica in Rome. The building is a two-storey structure of red brick covering about 4,768 square metres, with a high central dome supported by Corinthian columns, a long front facade with arched windows and wide verandas. Its plan includes a large durbar hall, a dining room, a billiard room, a library and a number of drawing rooms arranged around the central hall. The palace was damaged by the 1897 earthquake, which destroyed the dome's upper section, and the dome was restored in a modified form. After the accession of Cooch Behar to India in 1949, the palace passed to the government. It was later taken over for conservation and turned into a museum run by the state archaeology department. The museum displays portraits of the royal family, furniture, paintings, weapons, and personal objects of the maharajas. Restoration has been carried out in stages and many rooms remain with period fittings. The palace sits within a large compound with a lawn, near the Madan Mohan temple and the Rasmela fair ground.