PLACES OF INTEREST

GOVALKOT FORT

 Govalkot Fort [Tulajl Angre called this fort Govifidgad and the Anjanvel fort, Gopalgad, Gopal and Govind being generally used for any couple of things very elosely alike.' Mr. A. T. Crawford's MS.] (in Chiplun municipal area), on a small hill rising from rich fields, surrounded on three sides by the Chiplun creek and with a filled up ditch on the fourth, covers an area of about two acres. Water lasts till April and provisions can be had in a village, two miles off. The walls and bastions are in ruins. The place has little natural or artificial strength. There are two doorways, one to the north, the other to the east, and eight battlements. On the south wall, is an image of Redjaiji.

According to local report, the fort was built about 1690, by the Habshi of Janjira. The Habshi may have repaired the fort. But the position of the Redjaiji image seems to show that it was part of the original fort and that the builder or renewer was a Hindu king, probably Shivaji (1670). From the Habshi, it was taken by Angre (about 1744), from him by the Peshva (1755), and from the Peshva by the English (1818).

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