Tajhat Zamindar House

If you want to see Tajhat Zamindar Bari (Tajhat Palace), you have to go to Tajhat village of Mahiganj, about 6 km from Rangpur divisional city. In the latter part of the eighteenth century, the gem merchant Mannalal settled in Mahiganj for business reasons and later founded the Tajhat Zamindari. After the death of zamindar Mannalal, his adopted son Gopal Lal Roy Bahadur started managing the zamindari. At the beginning of the 20th century, the present Tajhat Zamindar House was completed with the tireless work of about 2,000 masons. This zamindar house, which was completed in 1917, cost about one and a half crore rupees at that time. The grounds of the Tajhat zamindar house have rows of trees, large grounds and two ponds on either side of the palace. And there are various flower and mahogany, kamini, mango and jackfruit gardens. The Zamindar house looks like Ahsan Manzil in Dhaka. The third and fourth floors of the four-storied Tajhat Zamindar house, built of red brick, white and limestone, house various items used by Zamindar Gopal. There are also living rooms, bathrooms and rooms for guests. About 210 feet wide, the Tajhat Zamindar house, built in imitation of ancient Mughal architecture, has 31 staircases made of Italian marble. At the back of the palace is the secret stairway, which is currently closed. In 1995, the Bangladesh Department of Archeology registered the Tajhat Zamindar Bari as a protected structure and in 2005, the Rangpur Museum was shifted to the second floor of the Tajhat Zamindar Bari. Several terracotta artefacts from the 10th and 11th centuries are housed in the museum’s exhibition rooms. Also preserved in the museum are several ancient manuscripts written in Arabic and Sanskrit, including the Quran, Mahabharata and Ramayana of Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb’s time. Apart from the Kal stone portrait of Vishnu, the museum has about 300 valuable artifacts.