THIS is the house that Chesson built! Not the line from a popular nursery rhyme sung in one of the junior classes in a Panchgani boarding school, but a bit of the hill-station�s history. John Chesson was a retired warrant officer of the honourable East India Company. He was directed by the British establishment in 1850 to investigate the possibilities of starting schools in the hilly area and find out to what extent local conditions were suitable for the life of European people.

Following this order, Chesson made a long journey to Panchgani, travelling via Watar and Baudan, riding on horseback through the village Godavli. One of his guides then was a Parsi whose relatives still live in Panchgani. The Russian writer Irina Chelysheva, in her book The Blue Mountains of Panchgani, writes that what Chesson saw and felt in Panchgani was most probably a reward for his long and tiresome journey. He was probably the first outsider to be attracted to Panchgani because of its unique climate conditions.

Chesson lost no time in deciding that Panchgani was an attractive place for establishing schools. He also ascertained that its climate was conducive for growing different sorts of fruits and vegetables. This, subsequently, became Chesson�s main preoccupation after his retirement in 1853. Irina Chelysheva suggests that Chesson was the key figure to invite to Panchgani not only his relatives, but many other Britishers as well, and they all bought land here from the government at throwaway prices and settled in these places.

In addition to this, the climate of Panchgani was so highly appreciated by European and Indian doctors, that in 1863 Sir Bartie Frere, the Governor of Bombay, officially declared Panchgani as a Hill Sanatorium and appointed Chesson as its first superintendent and magistrate. The Municipal Council of Panchgani was formed only in 1910. Panchgani�s British community in those days consisted of nearly 200 people. Many of their cottages and bungalows still remain on the hill-station, in silent memory of the Raj years gone by.