Where to Stay in Shrīrāmpur, West Bengal

What is Shrīrāmpur known for?

For nearly a century Denmark held this stretch of the Hooghly, and the town keeps a Danish church, a governor's house, and an old college by the river, for here the great Serampore Mission printed the Bible in the tongues of India. The river runs broad past the ghats. Denmark and mission mark the town.

What are the main landmarks in Shrīrāmpur?

Saint Olav's Church stands by the river at Shrīrāmpur. The old Danish church, white and pillared, rises near the ghats, the emblem of the town, from the colonial days. An old college holds the mission's memory.

Serampore College, founded by the missionaries, still teaches by the water, while the Danish governor's house and the riverside ghats mark the streets of the old town.

What is the history of Shrīrāmpur?

Shrīrāmpur was a Danish colony on the Hooghly. In the seventeen-hundreds Denmark set up a trading town here and named it Frederiksnagore, and it grew as a quiet port under the Danish flag, a haven on the river beside the great British lands. Then it became a city of print.

Three English missionaries, Carey, Marshman, and Ward, settled in the safety of Danish ground and set up a printing press, and from it poured the Bible in tongue after tongue of India. The mission changed learning in Bengal. The men of Serampore cast the first types for Bengali and many other scripts, printed grammars and newspapers, and founded a college that gave degrees, the first of its kind in the east.

In time the Danes sold the town. The British bought Serampore in the eighteen-forties, and the little colony faded into greater Calcutta, but its Danish church and its college still stand. The old buildings still line the river.

Shrīrāmpur keeps its Danish past on the Hooghly.

Where is Shrīrāmpur?

Shrīrāmpur lies on the Hooghly river in West Bengal, just north of Kolkata. The town sits on the west bank of the great river, in the flat green delta of Bengal, across the water from the temple town of Barrackpore. Palm groves ring the streets.

The wide river slides past the ghats.

What is the climate of Shrīrāmpur?

Shrīrāmpur lies deep in the hot, wet tropics. Long, steamy summers give way to the heavy rains of the monsoon, which soak the delta from summer into autumn, while the winters stay short and mild. Storms sweep the river in the monsoon.

The delta heat hangs heavy much of the year.

How do you get to Shrīrāmpur?

Shrīrāmpur lies on the Hooghly north of Kolkata in West Bengal. Trains on the main line run to it along the river from Kolkata, and roads follow the west bank, while ferries cross the water. Buses reach the delta towns around.

Most arrive by rail from Kolkata.