Devanahalli Fort

The first fort here was of mud. Malla Baire Gowda, of the same Morasu Wokkalu family as Kempegowda, the founder of Bengaluru, raised it in 1501 at a place then called Devanadoddi, with the consent of the Vijayanagara ruler. His descendants held it until the mid-18th century.

In 1747–49 the army of Mysore under Nanjaraja took it. The fort then passed to Hyder Ali, who rebuilt it in stone, and to his son Tipu Sultan, who renamed it Yousafabad, a name that never caught on. In 1791, during the Anglo-Mysore wars, Lord Cornwallis besieged the fort and took it for the British.

• The walls. A roughly oval ring, faced with dressed stone, enclosing about 20 acres, with twelve semicircular bastions at regular intervals and gun points of lime and brick. The gates on the east and west carry cut plasterwork and are small, just wide enough for the horses of the day. A wide battlement runs along the inner side.
• The town inside. Lanes, houses and shrines still fill the enclosure, so the fort is somebody's daily route home. The house where Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan lived and the house of Dewan Purnaiah, a senior official at their court, still stand inside.
• Venugopalaswamy temple. One of the oldest temples in the fort, facing the main road. Its walls carry scenes from the Ramayana and from Krishna's childhood, a standing Venugopala (Krishna with the flute) in Vijayanagara style is in the sanctum, and four black-stone pillars in the hall are carved on every side: a huntress pulling a thorn from her foot, dancers with musicians, a conch blower, a kinnara, half human and half bird. Once a year the deity goes round the town on a big chariot.
• Other temples. Siddalingeshwara, with a Raghavendraswamy matha (monastery) beside it, and across the street the Chandramouleshwara Shiva temple, also in Vijayanagara style.
• Tipu Sultan's birthplace. About 150 m south-west of the fort, a small pillared memorial with a stone tablet marks where Tipu was born in 1751. The ground around it is called Khas Bagh.

Both the fort and the birthplace carry Archaeological Survey of India boards as protected monuments.

The fort is in Devanahalli taluk, Bengaluru Rural district, north of the city, close to the airport.

There is no ticket: the fort is open ground with a town inside it. Morning is the comfortable time to walk the walls, before the sun is high on the stone. The temples inside are working shrines: leave your shoes at the door as everyone else does, and ask before photographing people at worship. The lanes are lived in, so keep your voice down near people's doorways.