Baramulla Bridge & Srinagar Old City Streets in Vintage Photos

A collection of old photographs showing everyday urban scenes in Baramulla and Srinagar from the 1860s to the 1980s. The pictures include an 1875 aerial view of Baramulla with its historic wooden cantilever bridge over the Veth River, cultivated fields, and early settlements; a narrow downtown Srinagar street in the 1970s with freshly tarred road and traditional buildings; Habba Kadal Chowk in 1982 as a busy junction with shops, pedestrians, and banners; multi-storey wooden houses along a narrow water channel in Srinagar from the 1860s–1880s; a market lane around 1980 with hanging fabrics, handcarts, and textile sellers; and Lal Chowk near the Gurdwara around 1970 with shopfronts, cyclists, and people walking. Simple views of old Kashmir.

This rare aerial photograph captures Baramulla as seen in 1875 from the right bank of Veth, looking upstream toward the historic wooden cantilever Baramulla Old Bridge, commonly known as the Six Pier Bridge. The structure is distinguished by its wooden deck supported by multiple stone archways that guided movement onto the bridge. Surrounding the river are cultivated fields, early settlement clusters, and traditional landscape patterns that reflect Baramulla’s importance as a river town and trade junction during the late nineteenth century. Visible on the right side of the image are Baramulla Qadeem and the Dogra Sarai, both significant landmarks of the period that no longer exist today. The photograph documents Baramulla before modern urban expansion, preserving the town’s architectural and geographic character during the Dogra era.

This photograph documents a narrow street in downtown Srinagar during the 1970s, shortly after fresh tar had been laid on the road surface. The image captures everyday movement within the old city, where residents walk through closely built lanes lined with traditional structures and small shops. Such streets formed the backbone of Srinagar’s historic urban fabric, designed for foot traffic and community interaction rather than heavy vehicles. The freshly tarred road reflects a period when limited modernization blended carefully with the city’s existing layout, without disrupting its ecological and architectural balance. Scenes like this preserve the character of Srinagar before large-scale concrete development, highlighting a time when urban life remained closely connected to human scale, tradition, and the natural environment.

This color photograph shows Habba Kadal Chowk in Srinagar in 1982, capturing a lively moment in one of the old city’s important commercial and social junctions. The scene reflects everyday urban life, with pedestrians moving across the open space, local shops lining the streets, and traditional multi-storey buildings forming the backdrop. Banners and signboards suspended across the road indicate the presence of civic, religious, or commercial announcements common in public spaces of the period. The clothing styles, modest traffic, and pedestrian-focused layout illustrate a time when Srinagar’s urban environment retained a strong human scale and community character. Habba Kadal Chowk functioned as a meeting point connecting residential lanes, marketplaces, and river crossings, making it a vital node in the social and economic life of the city before later phases of urban change.

This rare nineteenth century photograph shows traditional wooden houses in Srinagar dating from approximately 1860 to 1880, built closely along a narrow water channel. The multi storey structures reflect the distinctive Kashmiri architectural tradition, characterized by timber construction, overhanging upper floors, lattice windows, and sloping roofs designed to withstand the region’s climate. Built on wooden stilts and stone bases, these houses adapted to frequent water flow and limited urban space within the old city. The narrow channel below served both drainage and domestic purposes, forming an integral part of everyday life. This image documents a period when Srinagar’s urban fabric was shaped by river based living, local materials, and centuries old building knowledge, long before modern construction altered the city’s architectural identity.

This photograph captures a market street in Srinagar around 1980, showing daily commercial life within the old city. Colorful lengths of fabric hang overhead on both sides of the narrow lane, a common practice among textile and cloth sellers who used vertical space to display goods and attract customers. Pedestrians move through the crowded passage while handcarts and baskets line the edges of the street, reflecting a market environment shaped primarily for foot traffic. The surrounding wooden buildings and closely packed shops form a dense urban setting where trade, movement, and social interaction were deeply interconnected. Such markets played a central role in Srinagar’s local economy, serving nearby neighborhoods and preserving traditional patterns of commerce before wider changes in retail structures and urban layout altered the character of the old city.

This black and white photograph shows Lal Chowk near the Gurdwara in Srinagar around 1970, capturing everyday movement within one of the city’s most prominent commercial and social areas. A man walking hand in hand with a child occupies the foreground, while shopfronts, bicycles, and pedestrians line the street, reflecting the human scale of the urban environment. The presence of cyclists and foot traffic highlights a period when streets were shared spaces rather than vehicle dominated corridors. Lal Chowk functioned as a vital junction linking markets, places of worship, and surrounding neighborhoods, drawing people from across the city for daily trade and interaction. The image preserves a moment from a time when Srinagar’s central districts maintained a balanced rhythm of commerce, community life, and traditional urban design before later transformations reshaped the area.