Wasef Manzil & Cossimbazar Rajbari, Murshidabad

Wasef Manzil, also called the New Palace, stands on the bank of the Bhagirathi just south of Hazarduari. It was built at the beginning of the 20th century as the residence of Nawab Wasef Ali Mirza Khan, the Nawab Bahadur of Murshidabad, with the help of engineer Surendra Barat and an English architect named Vivian. The elegant palace with its marble statues brought from Italy, ornamental staircase and riverside gardens shows the refined, Europeanised taste of the later Nawabs. Damaged in the 1897 earthquake during construction, it was rebuilt on a reduced plan and has recently been restored and opened to visitors. A few kilometres south lies Cossimbazar, once one of the greatest silk trading ports of Asia, where the English, Dutch, French and Armenian merchants all maintained factories in the 17th and 18th centuries. It was at the English factory of Cossimbazar that a young Warren Hastings began his career, and its capture by Siraj-ud-Daulah in 1756 was the prelude to the Battle of Plassey. The star attraction is the Cossimbazar Rajbari — the palace of the Roy family (Cossimbazar Raj), built in the 18th–19th centuries by Maharaja Krishnanath Roy's line, famous patrons of education and culture in Bengal. The beautifully maintained palace with its courtyards, durbar hall, family temple and museum of heirlooms is now partly a heritage stay and open for visits. Cossimbazar also preserves the old Dutch cemetery, the English cemetery where Warren Hastings' first wife Mary lies buried, and centuries-old temples of the silk merchants — remnants of the cosmopolitan trading world that flourished before Kolkata rose to prominence.