When you travel on university road towards Aundh Gaon, on your left side you would see a small but typical Victorian style structure with a pointed spire like feature. The building is built with Deccan trap stone and tiled roof which looks like some British era, small governmental office or a check post.
This small structure was understood to be dismantled piece by piece for relocating it few metres inside, to facilitate road widening.
The building was called “Body Gate”. Local corruption of the coined word was “Bari Gate.”
Built around 1860 , this place served as a kind of gate for British Governor's body guards,and hence called Body Gate for short. Earlier there were quarters built as residences for British Bodyguards,and also stables for their horses, with water troughs, fodder storage etc.
The location was chosen close to Governor's residence located in main building of today's Savitribai Phule Vidyapeeth.
In the recent past it was housing Pune Police's office of some department. The building doesn't have notable history or mystery of any significance. However a typical building on otherwise modern Aundh area of Pune ,attracted a glance of curiosity.
Today I am unaware of the progress of relocation by civic body's conservation effort , but would always stay in minds of people who traversed that road.
Kudos to civic body's and conservation architect's efforts !!!!
Photographs are not taken by me. The copyrights to the images lie with the respective owners.
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