It was a sad day in September in the year 1843 for George Everest closed his residence at the famous Park Estate in Mussoorie after staying there for several years . Everest, the great surveyor and one of the first settlers in Mussoorie, stayed and worked in this hill town for a decade.

Lt Everest was appointed as assistant to Colonel William Lambton who had started the Great Trigonometrical Survey of the sub-continent in 1806. On Lambton's death in 1823, he succeeded to the post of superintendent. It was before leaving Calcutta at the end of 1832 that Col.George Everest asked for leave to move part of his office up country “to establish themselves at Mussoorie, where he will hire an office ….until such time as the two northern sections of the Geat Arc are brought to a satisfactory termination”.

By the tenth of May, he had taken up residence at Hathipaon or the Park, an estate which he had bought “at a very heavy cost”  from Colonel Whish ,who had built the Park House in the year 1829-30. Hathipaon Hill ,7089 feet above sea level , lies on the main ridge about three miles  to the west of Mussoorie ,within two miles of the high point, Benog. In 1839, approval was received from the Government of India for setting up of a temporary observatory, and also for a workshop.

The Park Estate was the home and laboratory of, Sir George Everest for almost a decade. The house is situated in a place from where one can catch the panoramic view of the Doon Valley on one side and a panoramic view of the Aglar River valley and snow bound Himalayan ranges on the other.This sprawling 173 acre Estate, located amid scenic surroundings, is also known as the George Everest Estate and provided the vantage point for Everest, known as the “father of Indian Geodesy”, from where he used Arcadia Grant as a baseline to measure the Himalayas.

The significance of Everest’s work, often described as the most remarkable achievement in the field of geography in Asia lies in the fact that he measured the Great Meridional Arc passing from Kanyakumari, through central India, to the Himalayas on which was calculated the mathematical spheroid of the country.Everest’s spheroid is the base of officially accepted heights of all Himalayan mountains. One of the unsettled scientific questions in the late 18th century was the exact nature of the shape of the earth. William Lambton, along with his band of surveyors and assistants, began his mission on April 10, 1802, with the first 7.5 mile baseline measurement between St. Thomas Mount in Madras and another chosen spot to its south. This measurement alone took 57 days. The Great Arc is indeed a dramatic tale of how India was mapped and Everest was named, how the dedicated team of surveyors undertook this 40-year long high-risk journey, braving bouts of malarial fevers, dysentery, floods and inhospitable weather, through hills, jungles and swamps.

An important relic lies preserved in the St. Thomas Church on Rajpur Road, perhaps the oldest garrison church in the region. The memorial plaque in Saint Thomas Church immortalises the memory of George Henry Walter Shelverton, a Deputy Superintendent in the Survey, who died near Madras in 1871 due to a Malarious fever.

The Survey laid the foundation of scientific geodesy that provided an incomparable framework of precise geodetic control points and enabled topographical and cadastral maps to be based on inch perfect surveys.

It was with deep regret that in September 1843 Everest closed down his residence at the Park, which had been his headquarters for ten consecutive seasons. Col Thatcher, on his retirement in 1861, bought Park Estate. He sold it to Col Skinner of Skinners Horse, an army regiment, who resold it almost at once to John Mackinnon of local brewery fame some time before 1870.

In 1865, Mount Everest was named in the honour of the great surveyor despite his objections. A year after this, Everest passed away.  Uttarakhand Government has been unable to realise the historic potential of this wonderful site and has failed to preserve it and develop it as a tourist destination.

If the State Government really wants, old field books, journals, maps, memoirs and letters lodged with the National Archives of India, New Delhi, can be accessed easily and material available with the Survey of India can be used to create an impressive museum at the house to immortalise the great scientific achievement of Everest. 

The plan to develop Everest House as an ecotourism destination has been hanging fire for decades now. The Uttar Pradesh Government, before the creation of Uttarakhand,  also had many ambitious plans for the site but they all remained in files. For years estate now comprises the main building and the  observatory.

When Everest,  closed down his office here in  September 1843, he rented it out. Later, it was sold it to the well-known Skinner family and then went to John Mackinnon, who died in 1870 and left it to his sons, the famous brewers.

It was also once owned by Mussoorie’s Shah family and Dehradun’s Pooran Singh family. Realising the great historic significance of this site, Uttarakhand needs to preserve it, put it shape and ensure that visitors interested in history and Geodesy can learn great lessons from it. All tourists to Mussoorie need to know this place in Hathipaon as not just a national heritage but a world treasure.