Marina Beach, Madras, 1902

Photograph of Marina Beach, at Madras (Chennai), Tamil Nadu, from the Macnabb Collection (Col James Henry Erskine Reid): Album of Indian views, taken in c.1902. Madras has a long shoreline on the Bay of Bengal, and the Marina, one of the most beautiful esplanades in the world, runs from the High Court to the suburb of San Thome in the south. It was planned by M E Grant-Duff, the Governor of Madras between 1881-86, and a number of impressive private and public buildings were built along it. This is a view from Marine Villa, a former residence of the Nawab of Carnatic, looking towards the domes of Madras University Senate House. Madras University Senate house is a colonial building designed in an Indo-Saracenic style by Robert Fellowes Chisholm (1840-1915) and built between 1874-1879.