Kempegowda Tower
One of the four sixteenth-century watchtowers built by Kempegowda I to mark Bengaluru's original city boundary, now a symbol of the city's founding and a protected heritage structure in Basavanagudi.
Kempegowda I, the Vijayanagara-era chieftain traditionally credited with founding Bengaluru in 1537, is said to have erected four stone watchtowers around the fledgling settlement to mark the limits of its future growth — a boundary that, according to local tradition, the city would one day outgrow. The tower near Basavanagudi, overlooking the Kempambudhi tank, is one of this quartet, alongside towers at Lalbagh, Mekhri Circle, and Ulsoor.
These squat, dome-capped granite towers are modest in scale but outsized in civic symbolism: they are treated as physical proof of Kempegowda’s founding act and are central to Bengaluru’s annual Kempegowda Jayanti commemorations. The tower’s survival into the present, embedded in a now-dense residential neighbourhood, offers a rare fixed point from which to measure just how far the city has expanded beyond its sixteenth-century limits.
Getting there: The tower stands near Kempambudhi Kere in Basavanagudi, a short walk from the Basavanagudi Post Office.
The site itself
Where to get your stamp cancelled
This may not be next to the site itself — some post offices serve several nearby landmarks.
- Post office
- Basavanagudi Post Office
- Pincode
- 560004
- Address
- Basavanagudi Post Office, Bull Temple Road, Basavanagudi, Bengaluru Urban District, Karnataka
Sources
- Project maintainer transcription of the physical Philately Passport booklet (district/landmark/post office list)
- Basavanagudi Head Post Office pincode record