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It was a rifle that set into motion the chain of events that finally converted the fifteenth century castle of Naggar, near Kullu, India into a hotel.

Just before the ‘Great Uprising’ of 1857, huge tracts of land were passing under the shadow of the British Empire. In the north, the ‘Sikh Wars’ were at an end and the Punjab had been tucked into the folds of the Union Jack. And Kullu, which had earlier been invaded and taken by the Sikhs, saw one Major Hay arrive as the newly appointed Assistant Commissioner. Raja Gyan Singh of Kullu was restored his kingdom and soon after he exchanged his hereditary castle at Naggar for a rifle that belonged to the major.

Just short of a carbine in his cabinet, the major had the keep exhaustively renovated. Fireplaces, chimneys and staircases arrived and the Naggar castle emerged as a unique amalgam of indigenous architecture and English country seat. The major moved on and sold the castle to the Punjab Government, who began using it as a court and rest house. In the 1920s the court activities ceased, but its doors remained open for visitors and travellers. In 1978, Naggar Castle was taken over by the fledgling Himachal Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation (HPTDC) and the Castle has recently witnessed another complete restoration and refurbishment project.

The major and his rifle, however, do not embody the entire history of this castle, which was built around 1460 by Raja Sidh Singh of Kullu. High upon a precipice, a thousand feet above the rushing waters of the river Beas and with a spectacular view of the valley, the castle steadily grew. The stone is said to have come from the abandoned fort of Baragarh, some distance away. Another account maintains that the stone was carried by a human chain that stretched over twenty kilometres to Gardekh, from a crumbling fort that had once belonged to the cruel Raja Bhonsal.

One of the stones is said to have come with no help from the builders. Within the castle’s courtyard, in a small structure, rests a huge boulder. Legend has it that one of Kullu’s rulers took a girl from a village near the Rohtang Pass as his bride. The young Rani was so homesick that the deities of the area, disguised as a swarm of bees, carried this rock from her village and placed it as a reminder in her new home.

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