Hemnagar Zamindar Bari, Zamindar house in Gopalpur, Bangladesh

Hemnagar Zamindar Bari is a two-story brick-and-lime palace built in 1890 on 60 acres, with hundreds of rooms. Its walls, pillars and gate use colored glass to form flowers, stars and trees, and two fairy statues flank the front. Inside the walled grounds are several wells, a zoo, a flower garden and an elephant stable, plus large ponds with brick-and-lime ghats.

Hemchandra Chowdhury left the Ambariya Rajbari in Madhupur in 1880 and built a new palace at Suvarnakhali on the Yamuna, from where he ran his zamindari. In 1890 he built this two-storey palace at Shimlapara, 3 km east-south of Suvarnakhali. He and other Hindu zamindars pushed the railway from Mymensingh to Jagannathganj Ghat in 1905, and he paved the 5 km road from Suvarnakhali to that ghat with herringbone brick, Gopalpur's first paved road. By the end of the 19th century the Yamuna had swallowed Suvarnakhali and his earlier palace.

Locals call the building "Parir Dalan" (fairy palace) because of the two fairy sculptures at its front, wrapped in expensive cowrie shell and stone. The walls, pillars and gate carry coloured glass worked into flowers, stars and trees, made by craftsmen and masons brought from Delhi and Calcutta. Hemchandra Chowdhury's name survives in the village name Hemnagar, and a large market, Hemnagar Bazar, grew up just south of the house.

The mansion stands in Shimlapara mouza, now Hemnagar, in Gopalpur upazila of Tangail district, about three kilometres east-south of the former Suvarnakhali river port site. The main building now houses Hemnagar College, so the grounds are shared with a working campus. The large tank with brick-and-lime ghats and the surrounding structures are spread out, so allow time to walk between them.

The mansion's name, Parir Dalan, comes from two fairy statues at its front, wrapped in expensive cowrie shell and stone. Hemchandra Chowdhury also built a five-kilometre herringbone road from Suvarnakhali to Jagannathganj Ghat, said to be Gopalpur's first paved road.