Mount Road and the making of Madras
Few roads tell a city’s story quite like Mount Road: once a dusty thoroughfare connecting the fort to the countryside, it became the economic heartbeat of Madras where traders, hoteliers and publishers built their legacies; and remains the stage where commerce, culture and history intersect in ever-evolving ways.
Vigneshwar V
Traffic hums past the weathered façade of the Kardyl Building, near the junction of Royapettah High Road and Mount Road, with the iconic LIC Building rising in the background. (Photo by the author, 2025)
Originating just outside Fort St. George in the north and cutting across the city to reach its southern end at the Kathipara Junction in Guindy near St. Thomas Mount, Anna Salai — or as it was formerly known — Mount Road, forms one of modern Chennai’s primary arterial roads. From government buildings and offices to showrooms and theatres, establishments of every colour dot this 13-kilometre-long stretch that traces its roots to the city’s colonial beginnings.
Maintained by the Tamil Nadu Highways Department, Anna Salai traverses through many of the city’s most prominent neighbourhoods including Nungambakkam, Nandanam and Saidapet, with an average volume of 1.5 lakh passenger car units (PCUs), way over its capacity of 60,000 PCUs even back in 2006. Mount Road’s proximity to places of interest like the famed Marina Beach, the Chepauk Stadium and the twin railway stations of Egmore and Chennai Central further underscores its importance.
From sharing tracks with Madras Tramways in the late 18th and early 19th centuries to now housing the first underground line of Chennai Metro Rail parallel to its alignment, Mount Road has kept pace with the city’s rapid transformation, remaining its most important throughfare both socially and economically without ever letting go of its charm.
Genesis
On 22nd August 1639, Francis Day and Andrew Cogan of the East India Company obtained a land grant for a sandy strip of land on the Coromandel coast from Damerla Venkatapathy Nayak, the viceroy of the Vijayanagar Empire who ruled over the region at that time, to build a factory and further their trading activities. Day’s dubash, Beri Thimappa was close to the Nayak’s brother, and was instrumental in orchestrating the deal in exchange for trade benefits and protection to the Nayaks. The Company set up a harbour and fortified the piece of land, constructing what would then go on to become Fort St. George, the first English fortress in India
A print of Fort St. George, ca. 1840, the nucleus from which Mount Road began its journey. (Source: Past India)
However, the British would not be the first European power to bank on the shores of the Coromandel coast enamoured by the riches it offered from textile, pearl and spice trade. Over a century ago, in 1523, the Portuguese had made their way to what would later be known as Madras from Calicut, seeking to expand their influence in southern India. They established the neighbourhood of San Thomé, building a church over the tomb of Thomas the Apostle. On the other end of the city, on a small hillock down the south, they built a chapel on the traditional site of St. Thomas’s martyrdom, giving the place its name — St. Thomas Mount.
British power eventually expanded as they gained military and commercial dominance in the region, while the Portuguese influence declined due to conflicts with the Dutch and later, the British. By the early 18th century, the British effectively took control of St. Thomas Mount, recognizing its strategic military advantage due to its elevated position. The British set up a garrison there in the mid-18th century, fortifying the area as part of their defences for Madras, particularly during the Carnatic Wars against the French and native rulers.
The eponymous Mount Road was originally born out of necessity as a simple cart track connecting Fort St. George to St. Thomas Mount, for the Company officials to reach the military garrison and pilgrims journeying to the chapel. The track was primarily used for troop movements, supply transport, and communication between the fort and the cantonment. As British influence in Madras grew, the track evolved into a well-trodden route for merchants, officials, and travellers, initially functioning as a military and trade artery, with bullock carts and horse-drawn vehicles carrying goods such as textiles, grains, and military provisions. Over time, the road saw increasing civilian use, with European settlers and Indian traders setting up shops and businesses along its length, leading to its transformation into a bustling commercial hub.
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William Hodges’ 18th-century painting of Marmalong Bridge, built by Armenian merchant Coja Petrus Uscan, Madras’ first bridge across the Adyar. (Source: Wikipedia)
An important factor that fuelled the transformation of this dirt road into a motorway was the construction of a bridge over the Adyar River near Saidapet, mitigating the challenges that came with crossing it during floods. In 1726, Armenian merchant Coja Petrus Uscan commissioned the Marmalong Bridge at a personal cost of 30,000 pagodas, making it the first ever bridge to be constructed across the Adyar. Named after the nearby village of Mambalam, the bridge not only facilitated easier access for those travelling to St. Thomas Mount, but also became a crucial infrastructure element, improving connectivity between Fort St. George and the southern regions, thereby contributing to the expansion of Mount Road and the city’s growth southward. Although the original structure was replaced in 1966 by the Maraimalai Adigal Bridge, a commemorative plaque inscribed in Armenian, Latin, and Persian remains, marking Uscan’s philanthropic contribution to the city’s development.
Manufacturing, Retail and Trade
“If you had a business, you had to be on Mount Road because it was close to Government House, the home of the Governor, and the palaces of the Nawabs of Arcot. Both had maximum purchasing power and Mount Road sold cars and other luxury goods.” — Chennai historian Sriram V about trade on Mount Road
Businesses, initially British, and then gradually Indian, flocked to Mount Road to peddle their wares on busiest street of their times. Due to the nature of its commuters, Mount Road naturally saw the setting up of more chic establishments as opposed to local markets or bazaars.
The title of the oldest surviving business house in the city is often attributed to Simpson & Co., which now functions as a part of the Amalgamations Group. In 1840, a Scottish wheelwright, A.M Simpson set up shop in another part of Madras as a coach builder and harness, saddle and bootmaker, ultimately moving to Mount Road to run his coach making empire. Simpson’s was a classic example of a business that evolved with the times; it went from building carts and coaches to building train coaches and automobile bodybuilding. In 1903, Simpson’s even developed a steam-driven car, which became the first motor car to be made in India.
In 1930, an accountant named S. Anantharamakrishnan joined Simpson’s as its secretary and quickly rose through the ranks to serve as the company’s director, one of first Indians to do so. He, along with the firm’s chairman and MD ultimately founded the aptly named holding company Amalgamations, which would go on an acquisition spree of iconic Mount Road businesses including Associated Printers, Oakes & Co. and Addison’s, the latter of whose famed art deco buildings still serve as the headquarters for the group.
Another business to be folded into Amalgamations was Higginbotham’s, India’s oldest bookstore in existence, that occupies a spot not only on the heritage landmark-filled stretch of Mount Road just north of Thousand Lights, but also in the hearts of the city’s book lovers. Abel Joshua Higginbotham landed in Madras as a stowaway in the 1840s and sold Bibles to make a living. He then joined the Wesleyan Book Depository, a methodist missionary run business as a librarian and worked his way to eventually buy out the failing business in 1844 to set up the illustrious Madras establishment that has since borne his name.
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India’s oldest surviving bookstore, housed in a stunning Indo-Saracenic building designed by R.F. Chisholm. (Source: Paper Planes)
Higginbotham was well respected figure in the social circles of Madras and went on to serve as the city’s sheriff between 1888 and 1889. As business grew, the firm found a new MD in Abel’s son, C.H. Higginbotham, who expanded the firm beyond the city by establishing outlets in railway stations across South India, a partnership that continues till today, and is the most likely location non-Chennaites would recognize the bookstore from. The business also found a new home in its current location on Mount Road in 1904, an architectural marvel defined by its high ceilings, limited operable windows, intricate archways, decorative stained-glass fixtures and a sloping Mangalore-tiled roof built specifically for housing books by R.F. Chisholm, a pioneer of the Indo-Saracenic style of architecture behind many famed heritage structures of colonial Madras.
A little less than a kilometre north from Higginbotham’s along the Mount Road, another Chisholm masterpiece greets the wanderer. Inaugurated by King George V and Queen Mary in 1879 and home to watchmakers P. Orr & Sons, a three-faced clocktower, quite suitably dominates the façade of this building constructed in the Byzantine style of architecture. Scotsman Peter Orr reached the shores of the quaint little sea town of Madras in 1843 with his brother, Alexander Orr. They eventually joined George Gordon & Co. in the watchmaking business, ultimately taking over in 1849 after Gordon’s retirement and solidifying the business into a bonafide Madras institution, even earning the monicker ‘the timekeepers of Madras.’
While P. Orr & Sons ventured into a variety of business that included everything from crockery, clothing and cycles to even arms, ammunition and airplane metres, their most successful diversification was into gold, diamonds and silverware. They popularized micro-repoussé jewellery based on Hindu mythological figures crafted by artisans from Trichy as Swami Ware and produced lockets, necklaces and bracelets in that style. These pieces became extremely fashionable in the West and visitors to India often shopped specifically for Swami Ware jewellery. This led to many Indian jewellers entering this business and even inspired imitations in London.
An exquisite example of Swami Ware, mythological repoussés inspired by artisans from Trichy
The aftermath of the Second World War left the business reeling and soon after independence, the company was sold to Karumuttu Thiagarajan Chettiar, a textile baron in 1967. Chettiar cut down the flab in the product mix and returned P. Orr & Sons to its roots as a watchmaker. Today, the business functions as a subsidiary of Loyal Textiles owned by the Chettiar family and operates over 14 branches in Tamil Nadu alone.
Perhaps the most well-known of the Mount Road businesses of yore is Spencer & Co., albeit in its new avatar as a pan-Indian chain of departmental stores run by the Kolkata-based RPSG Group. Though the Spencer story began in 1863 as Durrant & Co. and went through various iterations including Durrant & Spencer, J.W. Spencer & Co. and finally Spencer & Co., it was only with the arrival of John Oakshott Robinson in 1886, when his uncle, Eugene Oakshott owned the business, that its fortunes changed. Originally dealing in assorted goods, Spencer’s soon evolved into a full-scale retail department store with multiple sections, and in 1891, its iconic Mount Road store — often hailed as ‘the finest shop in the East’ — was commissioned and designed by architect W.N. Pogson. Spencer’s diversified into catering sometime in 1898 via contracts to run pantry cars with the various railway companies that plied routes across the country. The company also owned and operated hotels in Madras, Bangalore and Ootacamund.
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The legendary Spencer’s department store, once hailed as the finest shop in the East. (Source: Past India)
J.O, as Robinson was called, gradually assumed control of Spencer & Co. after his uncle passed and, through a series of acquisitions of rivals and smaller firms, transformed it into a dominant enterprise spanning retail, hospitality, and catering across the country. By the early 20th century, it had become the largest business of its kind in Asia. J.O was known to run a tight ship and was a tough taskmaster. While his employees were loyal and were considered part of the Spencer family, reports of segregation in practice at the company were commonplace: the British headed the company and Anglo-Indians were employed in sales and customer support roles, while the locals formed the lower rung.
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J.O’s son-in-law, S.W. Edwards took over the company in 1950, and with the country’s independence came a ban on imports, loss of the railway business due to nationalization and the exit of their most prominent hotel customers to Britain. The company was sold to C.H. Bhabha, a businessman and politician from Bombay and was eventually bought out by Rama Prasad Goenka in 1989. In 1985, the original Spencer’s department store on Mount Road made way for India’s first shopping mall, the Spencer Plaza, an eight-storey shopping-cum-office complex that was once the darling of the city’s masses but has struggled to withstand competition since the late 2000s. However, still thriving next door on Mount Road is the Taj Connemara, one of the hotels from Spencer’s roster, carrying forward a legacy that merits a closer look.
Hospitality and Entertainment
The Imperial Hotel was established in the year 1854 by T. Ruthnavaloo Mudaliar at the intersection of Mount Road and Binny Road, the site of the palatial house of the Nawab of Arcot, later occupied by John Binny of Binny & Co. fame who not only built his garden house there but also lent his name to the street on which it stood. Re-christened The Albany after a change in ownership in 1886, the hotel supposedly witnessed an event that would have filled gossip columns of its time, ultimately inspiring its subsequent name. Legend has it that in 1889, Lady Connemara, Susan Georgiana — the wife of Robert Bourke, Baron of Connemara (a region in Western Ireland) and the then Governor-General of the Madras Province — stormed out of their mansion and took up lodgings at the Albany, seeking divorce from her unfaithful husband. She would eventually return to England, where her divorce was finalized. Another account suggests that the name was inspired by Lord Connemara himself, as he was a close friend of the Prince of Arcot.
Either way, when Eugene Oakshott purchased the property in his personal capacity in 1891, he decided to call it the Connemara. The adjoining 9-acre land that came under his ownership along with the hotel became the site for Spencer’s Mount Road store. Eventually, the high-end heritage luxury hotel would also find its way back to the Spencer stable in 1913. In 1974, Spencer’s International Hotels Limited under the RPSG Group entered into a maintenance contract for all their hotels with The Indian Hotels Company Limited of the Tata Group, and as a consequence the ‘Taj’ prefix was added in 1995, giving the oldest hotel in Chennai its current name, the Taj Connemara.
Interestingly, another legendary establishment in Madras’ hospitality scene also shares a connection with Spencer’s. Italian confectioner Giacomo D’Angelis migrated to Madras as part of the 3rd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos’ personal staff when he was appointed as the Governor-General of Madras in 1875. D’Angelis was France-trained man, and when the Duke left Madras in 1880, he chose to stay back, smelling an opportunity, establishing Maison Française that baked scrumptious French and Italian pastries and chocolates. In 1908, he realized his dream of establishing a high-class hotel in Madras by founding Hotel D’Angelis on Mount Road, purchasing the former site of Durrant & Co., the predecessor of Spencer’s.
Hotel D’Angelis, renowned for its English, French, and Italian cuisines, soon gained a reputation as the finest restaurant in the city, with Giacomo even curating a Parisian Garden as an annex to the establishment. The building housing the hotel had the city’s first cold storage and electrical lift, making a roof garden possible as well. Another fascinating first associated with D’Angelis is that he was the first resident of the city to fly an airplane — but that is a story for another time. In 1927, the business was sold to Attillio Bosotto, another Italian who ran the Palace Hotel in Ootacamund, who renamed it Bosotto Bros. and earned the government’s favour as official caterer. When Bosotto sought to return to Italy in 1950, he sold the hotel to his dairy supplier Muslapa Chowdhry who while continuing the business under the same name, sold off the property on Mount Road.
An advertisement for D’Angelis from the 1920s, one of Madras’ earliest luxury hotels known for its pastries, roof garden, and the city’s first elevator. (Source: Madras Musings Archive)
Although Chowdhry’s grandson Raj Kumar runs multiple outlets in the city today and loyalists still swear by their vegetable puff and cardamom tea, Bosotto’s is just another neighbourhood bakery these days, a far cry from the gourmet Madras bakehouse that once served Queen Elizabeth on her visit to the city for Prince Andrew’s birthday. The erstwhile Bosotto’s site on Mount Road functioned as the Airlines Hotel for a while after its ownership change, before being converted into a shopping complex which was ultimately demolished in 2018 to make way for newer commercial establishments.
Any account of hospitality on Mount Road would be remiss without a mention of the Cosmopolitan Club. As a key colonial center, Madras saw the emergence of the first gentlemen’s clubs in India modelled after their London counterparts in the early 18th century. However, unlike earlier institutions like the Madras Club and the Madras Cricket Club which were exclusively for Europeans, the Cosmopolitan Club was founded in 1873 in Nungambakkam as the inclusive, Indian answer to these white-only spaces in the city with an intention to create a place where both Indians and the English could interact on equal footing.
In 1882, the Cosmopolitan moved to its current premises on Mount Road that featured a two-storeyed clubhouse with large verandas and Corinthian columns on a lush green campus. It soon became a hub for Tamil elites, lawyers, businessmen, and politicians, and with the likes of Sir Pitty Theagaraya Chetty serving as its president and Dr. T.M. Nair frequenting its halls, the Club could very well have been the birthplace of not only the Justice Party but also the Dravidian movement itself, whose ideologies still hold the state’s political fancy. According to its official website, the Cosmopolitan Club, “still as vital and vibrant as the day it opened, is the perfect home away from home to relish the culture and character of South India.”
To be continued part 2