Indian Architecture in England

Crazy Creations in the English Countryside

Although every major city in India is dotted with British colonial architecture, only a handful of buildings were ever built in the ‘Indian style’ in Britain.

Last summer I made it my task to track some of them down. The list is by no means exhaustive, but I hope it will show a very different side to England.

Enjoy!

A Mughal House in the Cotswolds

Sezincote House

Just one hour from Oxford, in the gorgeousness that is the Cotswolds, is one of the most beautiful and fascinating country houses in all of Britain.

Sezincote House was built in 1805 by Samuel Cockerell for his brother Charles.

Despite never travelling to India himself, Samuel was fascinated by the paintings he saw of the country by the Daniells brothers.

His previous client had been Warren Hastings, the first Governor General of Bengal, during whose commision he had played around with fusing English and Mughal aesthetics.

Now in Sezincote he took his ideas to their pinnacle.

Sezincote House

Sezincote represents a brief moment in British history when Englishmen began patronising art and architecture in Indian (and Chinese) styles as well as the traditional Greek and Roman styles.Over the next 20 years, Imperial racism would put an end to any such architectural experiments

Today Sezincote is still privately owned and is only open to the public several times a year. Other buildings on the estate include the Lucknavi-style Orangery, the Rajasthani-style 'Old Dairy', a Lingam and a Surya Temple. A few decades ago, the owners converted to sufism and today they host zikrs in a tented sidehouse.

The Punjabi Interiors of Hastings Museum

The Unlikely Ceiling of Hastings Museum

Hastings, the Victorian seaside town in the south of England, is renowned as the starting point of the Norman Conquest of England in 1066.