La Martiniere College, Lucknow (must see)

La Martinière College is a consortium of bi-national elite private schools, majority of them located in India. They are officially non-denominational private schools with units of two-two branches in Indian cities of Kolkata and Lucknow respectively and in France, the consortium is represented by a number of three branches in Lyons.

La Martinière College, Lucknow was awarded a Battle Honour – 'Defense of Lucknow' for the part the staff and pupils played in the Defence of the Residency at Lucknow during the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 – the only school in the world so distinguished.

The students of each College are divided into four houses, mainly for promoting academic and athletic competition among students. The champion house for the year is called Cock House.

La Martinière Boys' College occupies the central portion of the Constantia building and is set in a campus of around 400 acres (1.6 km2), part of which is now used by Lucknow Golf Club. The sprawling estate also includes a village called Martin Purwa, named after Claude Martin, and part of the Lucknow Zoo.

Constantia stands on a landscaped terrace overlooking what was once a lake, from the centre of which rises a solid fluted column with a Moorish cupola known as 'the Laat'. The monument is about forty metres (~125 feet) high, and is thought either to be a lighthouse or a marker for the grave of Claude Martin's horse. Over the years, the Gomti River has edged closer, necessitating the construction of a river bund between the front terrace and 'the Lat'. In 1960, the grounds were flooded and the 1803 and 1934 earthquakes caused several statues to fall from their pedestals where they crown the architecture. The statues are in modern and older antique styles.

The building is constructed in an unusual mix of styles. The rooms are decorated in bas-reliefs, arabesques and other Italian styled ornamentation. The eighteenth-century English potter Josiah Wedgwood was said to be responsible for the plaster of Paris plaques decorating the library and the chapel. However, the plaques which depict classical and mythological subjects are thought to be of local construction.

Orders for tons of imported plaster of Paris were discovered in Martin's letters, it is believed that they are in fact based on just one or two original models. What was imported was the large mirrors, French carpets, inlaid marble tables and paintings including some by Johann Zoffany who was a friend of Claude Martin. The building has been described as, "part Enlightenment mansion, part Nawabi fantasy, and part Gothic colonial barracks.