Scholars give different opinions regarding the date of construction of the Barabati fort. Madalapanji, the Jagannatha temple chronicle narrates an interesting story which is as follows.

King Anangabhimadeva III lived in his capital, Chaudwar (1211-1238 A.D.) One day the king crossed the Mahanadi and came towards the southern side. Here he noticed in the Barabati village belonging to the Ko-danda sub-division that near the god Visweswar, a heron had jumped upon a hawk. Seeing this the king was very much surprised and on an auspicious day laid the foundation of the construction of the fort and this village was named Barabati Cuttack. And after that, he left Choudwar and lived at Cuttack making it his capital.

In 1568 AD, the city passed to the hands of Afghan rulers of Bengal, then to the Mughal Empire in 1592, and the Marathas in 1751. Cuttack, with the rest of Odisha, came under British rule in 1803. The Bengal-Nagpur Railways connected Cuttack with Madras (Chennai) and Calcutta (Kolkata) in 1919. It became the capital of the newly formed state of Odisha in 1936 and continued to be so till 1948 when the capital was shifted to Bhubaneswar. The city completed one thousand years of its existence in 1989.

During the rule of the Muslims and the Marathas, it continued to be the capital of Odisha. The British army took possession of Barabati fort on October 1803, and it became a prison for the confinement of several illustrious rulers of the land. In 1800 the Raja of Kujanga, in 1818 the Raja of Surgaja with his family members were kept under strict confinement to this fort. In addition, vandalism to destroy the fort was intensified in the early phase of British rule.

Architechture

The fortification is square in the arrangement. It spreads over a region of 102 sections of land and encompassed on all sides by a stone-cleared channel of 10 Mtr. width in northern and western sides and 20 Mtr. width in the eastern and southern sides. The whole fortification divider with the exception of the passage is absent. Since, 1915, taking into account its public significance, the spot has been proclaimed as an ensured site by the Archeological Survey of India.

At the focal point of the fortification, there was a high hill with a tank on the western side. It spreads more than 15/16 sections of land of the zone. Presently the site is under broad infringement. Toward the east of the hill, there is the Shahi Mosque while in the west of the tank lies the Mazar of Hazrat Ali Bukhari. In 1989 unearthings were done by the Archeological Survey of India to find out the social skyline of the notable fortress and the work is as yet in progress. Removal by Archeological review of India on December first, 1989 uncovered proof of a castle, a square design developed of Khondalite stone. It was worked over a zone that was deliberately set up by topping off 5 meters with sand and lime combination. Channels burrowed on the eastern side of the design uncovered 32 columns worked of educated squares generally square yet changing in size.

In the northeastern corner of the hill survives from a sanctuary have been found. Uncovering on the eastern and southern side of the hill uncovered the presence of a fortification divider worked of laterite blocks.

The remnants of the old Barabati Fort lie on the correct bank of the Mahanadi, in the western piece of the city. All that survives from the Fort is a curved door and the earthen hill of the nine-storeyed castle. Archeological studies uncover that the Fort was generally rectangular in a construction having a zone of more than 102 sections of land (0.41 km2), and it was encircled on all sides by a mass of laterite and sandstone. Toward the west of the hill, there is a tank. In the north-eastern corner of the hill are stays of what used to be a sanctuary. The sanctuary was made of whitish sandstone over establishments of laterite blocks. Around 400 sections of moldings and some ravaged bits of figures have been recuperated up until now. This sanctuary of the Ganga time frame containing a stone symbol of Lord Jagannath is in ruins. A mosque worked by Nawab Murshid Quli Khan, legislative head of Emperor Aurangzeb in 1719 AD actually exists.