Welcome to an almost like a fairy tale Mussoorie which once boasted private farms, two breweries, a polo ground, a racecourse, English shops, the Happy Valley Club, the Himalaya Club and the Mussoorie Library too. Naturally, the place was created purely for pleasure not work. Time has wrought its changes but much of Mussoorie’s heritage remains. No one can take away a honeymooner’s delight at the slow cycle of the five seasons: leaf-green Spring, golden Summer, cool Monsoon days softened by mist and sparkling with rain, blue Autumn with the full fragrance of apples and the honk of flying wild geese with the moon on their wings, and crystal clear Winter when Winter Line flares over the darkening Doon.
There were no motor roads into the Himalayas a little less than 200 years ago. At that time an Irishman named Captain Young rode up these mountains on horseback. He was on a shooting excursion. He rested on a meadow and asked local herdsmen what it was called. They thought he was referring to the shrub that dotted this grassy stretch and said “Mansoor”. The cool, green, wooded hills reminded Young of Ireland, so he built a hunting lodge and called the place Mussoorie. His hunting lodge attracted other British settlers and the hill station was born. And, slowly, it grew and grew.
Every year, when the heat of our Indian plains got too much for the Victorian sahibs and their memsahib, they fled to the cool mountains. And, in course of time, it became the everything-goes, vacation town of the Raj where red-roofed cottages, set in typical English gardens, dotted the forested hills.
Times have changed, but the old charm can be felt at Ilbert Manor. Following is the list of places to see recommended for our guests: