Constantia
La Martinière Boys' College occupies the central portion of the Constantia building and is set in a campus of around 200 acres (0.8 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. Its facade mixes Georgian colonnades with the loopholes and turrets of a medieval castle; above, Palladian arcades rise to Mughal copulas."
Philip Davies writing on Architecture of the Raj in the illustrated London News of May 1982 has this to say about the Constantia:
" Built in the 1790s it is a bizarre building in a country renowned for extravagant eccentricities. Even more incongruously it now houses an eminent Indian Public school blessed with all the tribal rituals of Eton or Harrow. It is a disturbing building of the most peculiar design. The central tower has bridge links and the entire central range has a strange array of statues dominated by two huge lions whose eyes were supposedly lit by red lanterns."
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