Turkman Gate

Turkman Gate is one of the last surviving gateways of Shahjahanabad, the walled seventh city of Delhi that Mughal emperor Shah Jahan founded when he moved his capital from Agra.

• Laid out between about 1638 and 1649 by the chief architect Ustad Ahmad Lahori, the fortified city was ringed by high red-brick ramparts pierced by fourteen grand gates; today the wall is almost entirely gone and Turkman Gate stands as one of only five original gates still surviving, alongside Kashmiri Gate, Ajmeri Gate, Delhi Gate and Nigambodh Gate.
• It marked the southern edge of the old city and takes its name from the nearby 13th-century tomb of the Sufi saint Hazrat Shah Turkman Bayabani, which predates the city itself.
• Architecturally it is a handsome twin-bay gateway of sandstone and brick — the first bay flat-roofed, the second crowned by a dome — pierced by three arched openings (the outer ones with double arches) and flanked by semi-octagonal bastions.
• Marooned now on a traffic island on Asaf Ali Road, with no stretch of the old wall attached, it is best appreciated from the surrounding railing as a weathered fragment of Mughal military architecture anchoring the Old Delhi streetscape.
• It pairs well with a wider Shahjahanabad heritage walk taking in Delhi Gate and the Chawri Bazar bazaars.
• For vegetarian travellers, the famous pure-veg street food of Old Delhi — kulfi, chaat and sweets — is a short ride away around Chawri Bazar and Chandni Chowk.