Korigad’s easy staircase hides a fighting history. The fort was incorporated into the Maratha kingdom by Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj in 1657, alongside Lohagad, Visapur, Tung and Tikona — a cluster of forts that together controlled the trade routes through the Western Ghats near Lonavala. Its story begins earlier and ends with one of the more dramatic British sieges in the Sahyadris.
Under the Marathas, Korigad was part of the defensive chain protecting the passes near Lonavala. The six cannons still on the fort — including the large Lakshmi Tof facing west — testify to its garrison’s firepower. The Korai Devi temple at the entrance was maintained throughout this period, and the fort’s two freshwater lakes provided water for the garrison and any population sheltering during a siege. The combination of natural height, strong walls and independent water supply made Korigad genuinely difficult to take.
In March 1818, Colonel Prother led a British force to take Korigad. After a prolonged siege that made no headway against the walls and the position, the British succeeded on 14 March only when a loose cannonball fired from outside the walls hit the fort’s stored ammunition and ignited it. The explosion forced the garrison’s surrender. It was one of the last forts to fall in the British conquest of the Sahyadri chain — a fort that could not be taken by strategy or strength, and that fell only to a stroke of luck.
An easy climb to a hard-fought history. Walk through it with GoRaahi.