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Discovering Orme’s Road
S. MUTHIAH
At last I’ve been able to go in search of Orme’s Road (Miscellany, September 10 and October 1) in person and made a heap of discoveries. The first only confirmed what I had admitted earlier, namely that the two maps I had referred to, bot
h by leading cartographic publishers, were all wrong on this. The second I made was that Dr. Alagappa Chettiar Road was not any part of Orme’s Road but was Lauder’s Gate Road. And the third was that Orme’s Road is still very much there. It’s the stretch between the Alagappa Chettiar Road-Miller’s Road-Orme’s Road-Flower’s Road Junction and the Orme’s Road-Balfour Road-Kilpauk Garden Road-Dr. Muniappa Road junction.
Going back in time, I found that both sides of Orme’s Road were lined with garden houses. On the south were, from Flower’s Road westwards. Ormesdale, Glendale, Palmland and Kedelston. On the north, westwards from Miller’s Road, were Kelly’s Garden, Sylvan Villa/Lodge and Bellevue. M.K. Thyagaraja Bhagavathar lived in what must have been Glendale, I was told, and the Maharajah of Parlakimedi lived opposite what is now Bain’s School in what was probably Kedleston. That they lived on that stretch there is some unanimity, but whether the houses I suggested were theirs there is uncertainty on. On the other side, Sylvan Villa/Lodge was a house with a reputation for being haunted; it is now Sylvan Lodge Colony, with no reports of ghosts. The lone old house that survives in this area is Chatelet.
Reader V. Theetharappan tells me that west of Sylvan Villa/Lodge was a garden house set in 40 grounds. This was bought by his father and seven others from an Englishwoman, who had recently been widowed, at Rs.350 a ground plus Rs.50 a ground for road formation (the road being now known as Ormes Road 3rd Cross Street). The property could well have been Bellevue.
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