Fort and palace, Rangpur

Debi Chaudhurani's Palace, Manthanaদেবী চৌধুরানীর রাজবাড়ি, মন্থনা

Time needed: An hour.
best months: Nov–Feb
Cost: Free.

The ruined zamindar house at Manthana in Pirgachha, linked to Jayadurga Debi Chaudhurani, the woman landholder of Rangpur whose story Bankim Chandra turned into a novel.

At a glance

Where: Manthana, Pirgachha

About

Little is left but old walls, a temple and ponds, slowly taken by trees. Its pull is the story: a widow who managed the estate herself and stood against the East India Company's revenue men in the time of the peasant risings.

Getting there: Pirgachha is about 25 km east of Rangpur city by bus or CNG; ask locally for Manthana.

Things to do

Read the novel Debi Chaudhurani before you go.

Good to know

The walls are unstable; do not climb them.

Getting there

Read the Rangpur guide

Nearby

Museum and galleryMoniruzzaman Masum · CC BY-SA 4.0

Tajhat Palace

16 km, Rangpur

A white marble-stepped zamindar palace from the early twentieth century on the edge of Rangpur, now the Rangpur museum, with a domed roof and a pond and lawns in front.

Monument and memorialমো. মাহমুদুল আলম · CC BY-SA 4.0

Pairaband, Begum Rokeya's Birthplace

17 km, Rangpur

The village in Mithapukur where Begum Rokeya, the writer and pioneer of women's education, was born in 1880; the remains of her family home and a memorial centre stand there.

Mosque and shrine

Chandamari Mosque

17 km, Kurigram

A small three-domed Mughal-era mosque in Chandamari village, Rajarhat, believed to date from between the late sixteenth and late seventeenth centuries, with fine plaster ornament.

Monument and memorialখালিদ হাসান জীবন · CC BY-SA 3.0

Carmichael College

18 km, Rangpur

One of the oldest colleges in the north, founded in 1916 and named after Lord Carmichael, with a long arcaded main building set in a wide green campus at Lalbagh.