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When the postman knocked
CURIOUSLY, THE Moubray's name referred to above today cropped up in a letter I received while pecking out this week's Miscellany. The writer, who got the spelling right and did not use the conventional form ``Mowbray'', wanted to know why Moubray's Road became TTK Salai. ``What had TTK got to do with a road that led to someone else's home,'' he asked.
T.T. Krishnamachari, that forgotten Minister of many a portfolio that he graced with the spirit of innovation and development, indeed lived on Cathedral Road. But changing Cathedral Road to TTK Road would have hurt the sentiments of many and so the adjacent Mowbray's Road became TTK Road, bits of the eastern end of the TTK property having once abutted it.
Mowbray's Road itself got its name from Moubray's Cupola, the first `garden house' on the banks of the Adyar to which it led die-straight and tree-lined. It was built by George Moubray in the 1780s centred at the river end of 105 acres. Moubray, the first Accountant of Fort St. George, became a member of the first Board of Revenue in 1785.
After telling them about George Moubray, I've often joked with visitors looking with awe at his Cupola, ``Now you know where the money came from!'' Moubray's Cupola was very likely designed and built by Paul Benfield who built much of Fort St. George as its stands today, the Town Walls, and whom I credit with Chepauk Palace. The rest of its history awaits another day, but suffice it to say it passed into the Madras Club's hands in 1963.
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