Built after a famine that killed a crore people, Golghar was never used as designed

The Bengal famine of 1770 was one of the deadliest famines of the colonial era, with historians estimating that nearly one crore people died. The crisis exposed the vulnerability of British-controlled territories to food shortages, and when another, less severe famine struck Bihar in 1783, officials moved to prevent a repeat.

John Shore, then president of the Committee of Revenue, was asked to recommend measures, and among his proposals was the construction of a massive grain store in Patna. The recommendation was approved in January 1784, paving the way for Golghar, built in 1786 by Captain John Garstin, an architect and engineer of the East India Company, on the orders of governor general Warren Hastings.

Designed to store up to 1,40,000 tonnes of grain, the structure was built entirely of brick and lime mortar without a single supporting pillar. Yet the ambitious project was undone by a basic engineering oversight: all four doors were designed to open inwards, meaning that if the granary had ever been filled to capacity, the enormous pressure of the grain would have made it impossible to open the doors, according to Indologist Prabuddh Biswas.

Today, the protected monument stands as a reminder that even history’s grandest ideas can be undone by the smallest design mistake, with visitors now climbing its 145 spiral steps for sweeping views of Patna and the Ganga.

Image: Wikimedia Commons/by Kumartheharshit