Baradari Gardens

Baradari Gardens in Patiala were laid out in 1876 for Maharaja Rajinder Singh and cover about 81 acres. The name comes from a baradari, a pavilion with twelve arched openings. The grounds combine Mughal symmetry with colonial planning: straight walks, a central fountain, pavilions, and planted beds of trees and flowers from many countries, some of the trees now between 60 and 150 years old.

The Maharaja modelled the hexagonal Fern House on the one at the Royal Botanical Garden in Calcutta. It is held up by 96 poles of different heights, watered by 22 fountains and 32 sprinklers, can produce artificial rain, and contains a black bronze statue by a Spanish sculptor. There is also a rock garden. Around the gardens stand the old Baradari Palace, once a royal residence and now a heritage hotel, the 19th-century Maharani Club with its sloping red-tiled roof based on the pavilion at the Oval in England, a large Anglo-Indian style church built by the Maharaja, and the Rink Hall, a former skating rink now used for events.