Mount Road or Anna Salai connects Fort St. George to St. Thomas Mount. Let us look at what is on this historic thoroughfare in the stretch to the South, after Gemini Circle.
Dominated by the flyover, this intersection of Mount, Cathedral and Nungambakkam High Roads is historic. On the right, as you face South, stood Gemini Studios. In the early 1800s it was one of the many residences of Edward, Second Lord Clive. Later it was the residence of Sir Francis J.E. Spring, the man who built the Madras Port in the 1900s. Sometime in the 1930s, it became the offices of pioneering filmmaker and producer K. Subrahmanyam. Later, S.S. Vasan acquired it, renaming it Gemini Studios. Several great hits were made in this location. Following Vasan’s death in the 1960s, Gemini was closed and the property changed hands, becoming a warren of multi-storeyed buildings. But the name Gemini still lingers at this intersection.
Opposite Gemini, on Cathedral Road, stand the Agri-Horticultural Society Gardens. The Society was founded in 1835 and in addition to its own gardens, took on lease a vast property adjoining Mount Road. This became famous for its Woodlands Drive-In Restaurant which came up here in the 1960s. The hotel was closed a few years ago and the land reclaimed by the Government. Now it is the Semmozhi Poonga, a verdant preserve of green, open to the public.
Mount Road then enters what was once the village of Vanniya Teynampet. Here on the right, you have the Congress Grounds. A vast garden property known as Blackers Gardens, it was acquired and donated to the Congress Party by patriots and today serves as exhibition space. At its edge is Kamaraj Memorial Hall, a magnificent auditorium. Opposite Congress Grounds and hidden completely by other buildings stands the ruin of Minor Bungalow. Once this was the Newington College, a kind of finishing schools for princelings of South India. In 1919, de la Haye, the Principal, was shot dead by students who were suspected to be in love with his wife. The ensuing trial shook the city and the college was closed. Today the building looks ideal for a horror film. A little further down, on the same side as Minor Bungalow is the Hyatt Hotel, once a bungalow known as Abbotsbury. In its time it became a marriage hall, and later changed hands repeatedly. Always dogged by some misfortune or the other, it was acquired in the 1990s for a 5 star hotel, which never materialised, following the killing of the owner. It took another decade before the Hyatt made it a reality. Just before the Hyatt is Rostrevor Garden, a vast green setting for some grand old railway bungalows.
Further down Mount Road, you have the busy SIET intersection, so named as the South Indian Educational Trust, runs its college for women there. The Trust was the brainchild of Justice Basheer Ahmed Sayeed and began the college in 1955. Opposite this intersection is the residential cum business district of T Nagar. Further down, you cross Nandanam, a residential locality begun in the 1950s and named so by Rajaji. At the corner is the large open space that till recently housed the Poultry Research Station of the Tamil Nadu Animal and Veterinary Sciences University. The Research Station was begun in 1941 and made famous the Nandanam Broiler. It has now moved, with the land being made over to the Metro. Also in Nandanam is the expanse of the YMCA. Acquired in 1928, it developed into a facility for physical training, which it continues to be, thanks to Harry Crowe Buck, an American who made Madras his home in the 1920s. Next to it are the golf links of the Cosmopolitan Club. Laid out in 1930s, it marked the beginning of Indian interest in the game.
Historic Saidabad or Saiyad Khan’s Pettai or Saidapet, comes next. Gifted by the Nawab of Arcot in the 1730s, it was an independent village with a powerful Muslim presence. It has a historic mosque in its midst and also several old temples and churches. Till it became a part of Madras, Saidapet was the headquarters of the Chingleput District. The river Adyar cuts Mount Road here and over it is the historic Maramlong Bridge, first built by the Armenian Coja Petrus Uscan in 1728. Today, much expanded, it is called the Marai Malai Adigal Bridge. At the Guindy end of it stood Panagal Maligai, the Chingleput District Collector’s Office, a grand old edifice. It was later demolished to make way for the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board building. Still standing however is the old building of the Teacher’s College, Saidapet, founded in 1856. Its campus is now home to several other institutions.
As Mount Road passes over the bridge and enters Guindy, it separates two historic institutions. On the left is the Race Course, officially the Madras Race Club, which goes back to 1896. On the right is the King Institute of Preventive Medicine established in 1899 and still doing research into vaccines. Just before these is another historic area – the Guindy Industrial Estate, the first of its kind in the country, founded in 1956 by R. Venkataraman, then Industries Minister, Government of Madras.
Little Mount stands on one side of Guindy. Associated with St. Thomas, it had a Portugese Church on its summit from the 1550s. Now that shrine has been expanded considerably and modernised. Much larger than Little Mount is St. Thomas Mount, also associated with the apostle of Jesus and having a church constructed originally in the 1550s. It is believed to be spot where St. Thomas was martyred. Steps leading to the summit were first laid out by Coja Petrus Uscan. Mount Road as a name ends at St. Thomas Mount, close to the airport though it continues as the Grand Southern Trunk Road.
