Kashmere Gate (Delhi)

The Kashmere Gate or Kashmiri Gate is a gate located in Delhi, it is the northern gate to the historic walled city of Delhi. Built by Military Engineer Robert Smith in 1835, the gate is so named because it used to start a road that led to Kashmir.

Today it is also the name of the surrounding locality in North Delhi, in the Old Delhi area, and an important road junction as the Red Fort, ISBT and Delhi Junction railway station lie in its vicinity.

It was the area around the North gate of the walled city of the Delhi, leading to the Laal Quila, the Red Fort of Delhi, the gate was facing towards Kashmir, so it was named as Kashmiri Gate, spelled Kashmere Gate under British Raj. The monument can still be seen. The southern gate to the walled city, is called Delhi Gate.

When the British first started settling in Delhi in 1803, they found the walls of Old Delhi city, Shahjahanabad lacking repairs, especially after the siege by Maratha Holkar in 1804, subsequently they reinforced the city's walls. They gradually set up their residential estates in Kashmere Gate area, which once housed Mughal palaces and the homes of nobility. The gate next gained national attention during the Mutiny of 1857. Indian soldiers fired volleys of cannonballs from this gate at the British and used the area to assemble for strategizing fighting and resistance.

The British had used the gate to prevent the mutineers from entering the city. Evidence of the struggles are visible today in damage to the existing walls (the damage is presumably cannonball related). Kashmere Gate was the scene of an important assault by the British Army during Indian rebellion of 1857, during which on the morning of September 14, 1857 the bridge and the left leaf of the Gate were destroyed using gunpowder, starting the final assault on the rebels towards the end of Siege of Delhi.

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