Buckland Bund

Buckland Bund (Bengali: বাকল্যানড বাঁধ) is a historically significant architectural creation situated by the Buriganga river bank of Old Dhaka, Bangladesh. It was constructed by Charles Thomas Buckland in 1864 who was the commissioner of Dhaka during that period.

Charles Thomas Buckland was appointed the commissioner of Dhaka 1864 and he had a very successful tenure at this post for 5 years. Azimush-Shan built a palace for himself in Posht on the bank of Buriganga which was situated about 400 yards away from Lalbagh Fort. The palace is now washed up by the river, but the embankment was visible for a long time. This embankment goes right eastward and termintaes at Babubazar Khal. It is clearly visible when passing by boats. According to Rennel, this bund in 1765 extended four miles northeast to southwest. Even though there was already a bund by the Buriganga riverbank from the Mughal period, it was Mr. Buckland who took the initiative to build a metaled road over it. That is how the road by the riverbank came to be known as the Buckland Bund which is almost one mile long, from Forashgonj to Babubazaar.

There was no expansion of the city south of the river, but the riverfront itself grew to be the most pleasing and beautiful part of the town. In Dhaka there had always been a tendency to live near the river. As it was the principal means of communication with the other parts of the country, river frontages were commercially valuable and the river itself was a major source of water supply. Only after the coming of the railway, a piped water supply and electricity for fans and coolers did the riverfront of Dhaka lose its prime importance as a residential locality. Prior to these developments, most of the rich inhabitants of the city had their residences here, and all the most elegant houses and buildings of Dhaka fronted the Buriganga. The magnificent houses of the zamindars, merchants and other richer people, the fine residences of European officials, the remnants of the majestic Lalbagh Fort, the old buildings of Bara Katra and Chota Katra, the domes and miarets of several beautiful mosques upon the edge of the river, gave to Dhaka, as the traveler approached it, the look of a city rising from the sea. The river was also however, a source of problems. It was tidal, so that at low tide, it exposed a foreshore which was muddy and noisome, causing great difficulties to those crossing the river or loading and unloading cargo.

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