Pasha’s passion for Nile palaces
QUESTION During World War II, I was in an RAF unit stationed at Kasr el-Nil garrison in Cairo, rumoured to date from Napoleonic times. Is this true? The Kasr el- nil ( Qasr al- nil) district is situated on the east banks of the Nile, centred around the now famous Tahrir square.
The present-day area was once an uninhabitable swampland that flooded according to the cycles of the Nile. The area was drained, and the eastern bank of the Nile was reinforced i n the 1850s through to the 1870s.
The area was developed by Saeed Pasha who had a home, the Qasr al-Nil ‘Palace on the Nile’, built here in 1858 (37 years after Napoleon’s death). In f ront of this he constructed the massive barracks. This also served as the Ministry of War and set the pattern for developments subsequently introduced by Khedive Ismail Pasha.
In 1866, Ismail Pasha cut the Ismailiyah Canal, the mouth of which entered the Nile just north of the palace. he had studied in Paris as part of the educational missions initiated by his grandfather, Mohamed Ali Pasha, to build a ‘modern egypt’.
his stay in Paris greatly influenced him and he embarked on a plan to create a Paris- sur-Nil with long broad boulevards punctuated by squares and public gardens.
his ambitious programme produced the famous ‘Kasr’ series: Kasr al-Aini, Kasr al-Aali, Kasr alDubara, Kasr al-Nil and Kasr alWalda. each represented a royal palace with Nile-front gardens. Ismail Pasha was deposed by the British in 1879, who took over the barracks in 1882 following the Battle of Tel el-Kebir.
The barracks remained occupied by the British until 1947. Following the revolution of 1952, they were torn down, eventually making way for Africa’s first hilton hotel and the Arab League building, designed by Mahmoud Riad.
M. Alin, Coventry. QUESTION At a time when footballers relied on their testimonial to give a sense of financial security, one dream was to own a pub. Did anyone make a success of such a venture? FuRTheR to the earlier answers, in the Sixties Bolton Wanderers forbade their contracted players from owning or tenanting pubs until their greatest player, who was coming to the end of his career, wished to take over a pub while still playing.
That player was Nat Lofthouse, who scored 255 league goals for the club between 1946 and 1960 and scored 30 for england in just 33 games. The rule was relaxed for him to become publican of the Castle hotel on Crompton Way.
his beer was jokingly described as ‘Nat’s p**s!’