IN the Dum Dum suburb of Calcutta, in a derelict condition, lies the country house of Robert Clive — the founder of the British Empire in India. The Clive House was a villa reconstructed by Robert Clive (1725-74), just after his famous victory at Plassey in 1757.

"This house was originally a Dutch or Portuguese factory, a single-storey building of brick, massively buttressed, standing on an artificial mound. Clive added an upper storey to it with a pillared loggia in the centre and laid out a formal garden with walks and shrubberies". There were five-bed rooms, a wide verandah, two staircases, a big hall, eight carriage sheds and plenty of storerooms in the building surrounded by 50 acres of land. The garden, now in ruins, is said to have been landscaped by Clive himself. There was a tunnel for escaping out of the mansion in case of an emergency. In 1979, one historian was shown the entrance to the tunnel, which has been sealed since World War II.

Another legend is that, out of the 700 chests of treasure given to Clive by Nawab Mir Jafar in 1757, as war reparations to the English East India Company, quite a number were illegally appropriate by Clive, and they lie buried in the compound. Bishop Heber, the 19th century traveller paid a visit here in 1823 and wrote of the house thus "a large house, built on an artificial height above the neighbouring country and surrounded by pretty walks and shrubberies".

According to writer Mark Bence-Jones, Clive liked to spend quiet weekends at Dum Dum. "One can imagine Clive thumbing his time away through the vast supply of reading matters, which he had sent for from England — a whole year of Gazetteers, Ledgers, Advertisers and Gentleman’s magazines together with various pamphlets like A vindication of the Ministry of Grievance of the American Colonies". Such was his affection for the place, with its memories of weekends with Anne Maskylene, whom he married in Madras six years earlier, that he took to living in Dum Dum, for most of the time, riding into Calcutta each morning and returning in the evening by chaise".

British historians visiting India in 1997, the 50th anniversary of Independence, have called the mansion a remarkable edifice, and have even asked the British National Lottery, which supports the maintenance of such historic buildings in Britain, to grant funds for it. They say it would cost about Rs 15 crore per annum to maintain this mansion and other derelict Raj buildings in India, and cite the example of the French Government, which has recently granted financial support for the maintenance of old French edifices in the former French-Indian colonies of Mahe, Pondicherry and Chandernagore.

In the words of the eminent architect Nicholas Thompson, who restored the Windsor Castle in Britain after its disastrous fire in 1986, "full restoration of the Clive House is not possible, but the building could be strengthened. A few rooms could perhaps be converted into an exhibition gallery, a museum on Clive, a tea room or a gift shop", in order to bring in the revenue.

— Maharaja Features