Another potential tourist spot
The gate was initially built during the period of Mughal Emperor Akbar (again a controversy as some say it existed in Malik Ayaz’s times as well. This can only be verified by excavating the foundations, which I think cannot be done)
Lohari Gate is considered one of the earliest gates of Lahore. Some books state that initially there were only five entrances to the Walled City and Lohari Gate was one. Historians also record that Lohari area was the original fort built during the rule of Mahmood of Ghazna, and the streets do look like a labyrinth similar to different forts. Anyhow, who knows the past unless some strayed soul of those times meets us! By the way, this is something interesting about the Walled City, people do come across strange characters that are actually dead hundreds of years ago, I have experienced that myself but it would be lengthy to elaborate my experiences here, so let’s stick to Lohari Gate and the marvels inside it.
The gate was initially built during the period of Mughal Emperor Akbar (again a controversy as some say it existed in Malik Ayaz’s times as well. This can only be verified by excavating the foundations, which I think cannot be done). Mughal Emperor Akbar was the one who had built a fortified wall around the city with thirteen gates, and Lohari was one of the gates. During the Sikh riots the gate got smashed and was rebuilt in British period with small bricks on the same old style. The rooms were built in the upper storey for officials; presently rooms are being used as offices of Walled City Lahore Authority. The gate still has wooden arches. The roof top is spacious with a podium in the center. I guess the roof was used for assembly, but I would suggest that this place can be utilised as an open air theatre now.
Inside the Lohari Gate is an interesting trail where you come across unique markets and architecture. Lohari is enriched with havelis and heritage homes. Many remains of the affluent families are still seen there in the form of houses and havelis. One of the interesting havelis you come across inside Lohari is the Lal Haveli. The building is on the eastern side of the Lohari Mandi Bazaar, north of Chowk Lohari Mandi, the second house on the right as one enters the bazaar.
The Lal Haveli (Red House) is a residential structure that has one of Lahore’s best preserved cut-and chased brickwork and plaster mouldings on a fair-faced brick ground and exquisite wooden jharokas on the three principal floors. The brickwork has been kept painted over the decades with a coat of red ochre paint which gave the house its name. Local tradition also has it that the haveli was built by the maharajah of Kashmir for a favoured courtesan by the name of Daru. For this very reason it is also known as Mai Daru’s Haveli. The exact date of construction is not known, but it was sometime in the late 19th century.
Lal Haveli, along with three other properties, forms a beautiful cluster of houses, worth visiting. A very narrow street will lead you to the main entrance of the haveli, but the façade embellished with Jharokas faces the main bazaar.
The ground-floor street side was once changed from dwellings (a baithak with windows opening onto the bazaar) to a series of show makers’ shops. This involved removing carved and ornamented doors and windows, including the magnificent entrance door, adding concrete lintels to the masonry, and removing the original arched masonry work from below the lintels to make room for the shops. The building got commercialised and the shops damaged the beauty of it. The plinth was modified by adding a concrete slab projecting out into the street to form the base for the shop extensions and steel shutters. The interior was also divided up by adding brick walls.
Despite the irregular shape of the site, the building conforms to a courtyard plan with a central space surrounded by dalans. This sort of a construction was a typical one during the Sikh period and many Havelis we see inside the walled city today are similar to it. There are, however, some variations on this essential theme on each floor. Three staircases lead from the ground floor, two at the two principal entrances the main entrance (now closed) from the bazaar and the one from the side lane in the south. The third staircase rises from the western corner of the central hall. The three staircases traverse the building vertically to the first floor, past a mezzanine floor. The only staircase that runs from the first to the second floor is the one in the north or dewrhi end of the building. This same staircase also leads to the roof. The concept of a mezzanine floor is also seen in many other Havelis of the same era. Dina Nath’s Haveli, Nau Nehal Haveli and many others have mezzanine floors. Usually the mezzanine floors were constructed to store treasure.
The part of the ground floor that has not been tampered with contains four large spaces including the central hall. The hall has a masonry niche with a thick sheet (chadar) that appears to have been fed by an elevated cistern placed near the well in the middle of the southern side of the building
The part of the ground floor that has not been tampered with contains four large spaces including the central hall. The hall has a masonry niche with a thick sheet (chadar) that appears to have been fed by an elevated cistern placed near the well in the middle of the southern side of the building. There is a room behind the dalan on the eastern side next to the second entrance staircase. Neither the well nor the cistern is accessible. The central hall is high enough to have a mezzanine floor perched over the ground floor baithaks (now the shops). The mezzanine floor opens through windows on both sides, i.e., on the bazaar side as well as into the central hall.
The plan repeats itself on the first floor, where the building is most exquisitely detailed. The major features are the jharokas opening onto the bazaar and lined with decorative mirror-work. The second floor appears to have been altered in the early 20th century, when its three barsatis were converted into three rooms bound together by an enclosed verandah. The terraces still contain the original shah nashins. A few of the timber beams spanning the roofs have been seriously damaged by insects and need to be replaced immediately. The two upper levels are in a style of the high Sikh period, with jharokas and arches rendered in cut-brick ornament and mouldings made of mortar. As a whole, the building is one of the best preserved from the early British period in the Walled City. Moreover it is a unique example of what seems to be a deliberate attempt to build in a traditional stylistic idiom at a time when new materials, new modes of building, and new spatial types were entering the architectural vocabulary of Lahore, giving rise to a considerable range of architectural expression.
At present the owner of the haveli is residing abroad and the shops which were once constructed in it have also been vacated. The haveli is locked and no one is looking after it. As a result the ceilings and the walls are being damaged due to negligence and aging. It can be converted into an interesting tourist spot, if conserved.
