Page:Calcutta, Past and Present.djvu/122

 which sum Kiernander provided all but about two thousand rupees which was subscribed by sympathizers. The architect was a Dane, Martin Boutant de Mevell, and the church he raised was a bare and barnlike structure, very unlike what it is now, after undergoing various alterations and enlargements since its completion in 1770.

The church was consecrated under the name Beth Tephilla (House of Prayer), but the clumsy appellation seems never to have been used, and after other churches were built it was called simply the Old Church, a name by which it has been known by successive generations to the present day. The red-brick exterior of the church is said to have gained for it the name of Lal Girja, or Red Church, from the natives. It is sometimes said that the Dalhousie Square tank took its native name Lal Diggee, the Red Tank, from a red-brick bastion of the Old Fort which, reflected in its waters, gave them a ruddy appearance. Whether this was so, or the tank was known to the natives, as it certainly was to the early English, as the Great Tank is an open question. The name Lal Diggee may have been acquired later from the Lal Girja, in the same way as that of the upper part of Bow Bazar, Lal Bazar, was. It must be remembered that Rh