Place · Nayaka sea fort · India
Bekal Fort, Kasaragod
Also known as Bekal (Ikkeri, Bekal (Ikkeri-Mysore-EIC), Bekal Fort, EIC), Kasaragod, Mysore
An Ikkeri Nayaka sea fort of the seventeenth century on the Kasaragod coast, forty acres of laterite on a headland with an observation tower and gun-slits cut at three levels — for musket, for matchlock and for cannon — so that fire could be laid on ships, on the beach and on attackers at the wall.
- Date
- 17th century · 1763
- Function
- Military & resistance
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 12.391, 75.034
Worth knowing
It has no palace or residential quarter inside it at all, which is unusual and tells you it was built purely as a garrison and an observation post rather than as a seat. Haidar Ali took it in 1763 and used it as a Mysorean naval base; the fort passed to the Company after 1799 and is now best known from Malayalam cinema.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Bekal Fort”. South Kanara District Gazetteer; Archaeological Survey of India, Thrissur circle records.
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