A 16th-century granite fort built by Vijayanagara subordinate chieftains, later a place of exile for the family of Tipu Sultan, and the site of the 1806 Vellore Mutiny — one of the earliest large-scale Indian uprisings against British rule.

Vellore Fort was constructed around 1566 CE by Chinna Bommi Reddy Nayak and Thimma Reddy Nayak, subordinate chieftains under the Vijayanagara emperor Sadasiva Raya, using massive granite blocks quarried from the surrounding Arcot and Chittoor region. Its defenses — double walls up to thirty feet high, twenty feet thick in places, irregular bastions, and a wide moat — reflect advanced 16th-century Vijayanagara military engineering. Following the Vijayanagara empire's decline, the fort passed through the Bijapur Sultanate and the Nawabs of Arcot before coming under British East India Company control, which used it, among other things, to hold the exiled family of Tipu Sultan after the fall of Mysore in 1799. It is best known today for the Vellore Mutiny of 10 July 1806, in which Indian sepoys stationed at the fort rose up against British officers over grievances including new dress regulations perceived as disrespecting religious customs — an uprising suppressed within a day, but remembered as one of the earliest major armed rebellions by Indian soldiers against East India Company rule, predating the much larger 1857 uprising by half a century. The fort complex today also encloses the Jalakandeswarar Temple and a small museum.

Vellore Fort

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