GENERAL POST OFFICE. CALCUTTA
BLACK HOLE, CALCUTTA.
ADJOINING THE GENERAL POST OFFICE
II. The two lines of twelve arches
to the west of this tablet
are all that now remains above ground
of old Fort William and
originally formed a portion of the arcade
within the South Curtain.
The Black Hole Prison was a small room
formed by bricking up two arches
of a similar but smaller arcade
within the East Curtain
south of the East Gate.
The sunken arches, where the Post Office vans were kept, once formed part of the arcade within the south curtain, the wall line of which is marked out by brass lines let into the pavement. The wall of the curtain, a portion of which was still standing in 1895, backed the old export and import warehouses, and through the arches one would have in the old days looked into the parade ground within the Fort. The export and import warehouses were built against the south curtain in 1741 and would have followed the line of Koila Ghat Street.
The angle of the south-east bastion and the thickness of its walls is indicated by brass lines let into the steps of the Post Office. A tablet pointing out this fact is on the adjacent wall, and the entrance to the east gate of the Fort is commemorated by a tablet fixed into the red building opposite the Holwell obelisk:
Sixteen feet behind this wall
was the entrance of the East Gate
of old Fort William through which
the bodies of those who perished
in the Black Hole were brought and
thrown into the ditch of the Ravelin
on 21st June, 1756.
To the north of the General Post Office building, inside the large gateway, is a tablet with the following inscription:—