Chandannagar
— — the French quay on a Bengali river.
Not only on a wall.
“A small city on the west bank of the Hooghly, about thirty-five kilometres north of Kolkata. Chandannagar was French from 1673 until 1950, the last European foothold in Bengal to leave. The Strand still runs a kilometre along the river under gulmohar trees, past the Sacré-Cœur church and the old Dupleix residence. Once a year, in the autumn, the town lights up for Jagaddhatri Puja.
Chandannagar, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Chandannagar sits on the west bank of the Hooghly river in West Bengal, about 35 kilometres north of Kolkata. France acquired the site in 1673 from the Mughal governor of Bengal and held it, with brief British interludes, until 1950. The population is about 166,000. The historic core stretches along the Strand, a riverfront promenade of nearly a kilometre, with the Sacré-Cœur church, the Institut de Chandernagor museum, and the 18th-century French cemetery still in place.
French Chandernagor was founded in 1673 under François Martin and grew into one of the principal European trading stations on the Hooghly. Joseph François Dupleix governed it from 1731 to 1741 before his career took him south to Pondichéry. After 1816 it settled into a quiet enclave, retaining French civil law and a French sub-prefecture. A 1949 referendum chose union with India; the formal transfer took place on 9 June 1952. The town has kept its French street names and architecture.
The Hooghly here is broad and slow, the principal distributary of the Ganges as it nears the Bay of Bengal. At Chandannagar the river is about 800 metres across; the ghats step down to it in worn laterite. The Strand was laid out as a riverside promenade in the 19th century and is still where the town walks at sunset. Ferries cross to Jagaddal on the east bank. Tides reach this far upstream — the water rises by about a metre with the flood.