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Photo: Department of Archaeology & Museums, Government of PakistanField guides / Punjab / Wazir Khan's Hammam
Field guide · Heritage
Wazir Khans Hammam is situated in side Dehli Gate.
The Shahi Hammam is a Persian-style bathhouse built in 1635, just inside Delhi Gate, by Hakim Ilm-ud-din Ansari — a physician from Chiniot who rose to be chief physician at Shah Jahan's court and took the title Wazir Khan. It has twenty-one interconnected rooms and offered hot, warm and cold baths and steam rooms to citizens and travellers entering the city.
Why go
The same patron built the Wazir Khan Mosque deeper inside the Walled City. The hammam's income was endowed to maintain that mosque. Over the centuries the building was subdivided, used as a dispensary and a school, and its frescoes were buried under whitewash. Between 2013 and 2015 the Aga Khan Trust for Culture and the Walled City of Lahore Authority conserved it, with funding from the government of Norway.
The conservation received a UNESCO Award of Merit in 2016, cited for its high degree of technical proficiency. It is the only Mughal bathhouse of its kind surviving in Pakistan.
The hammam is surrounded by shops on its north, south and west, with Delhi Gate itself closing the eastern side.
The first monument you meet coming through Delhi Gate, and one of the very few Mughal buildings in Lahore you can see restored to something close to its intended state.
Planning tip
Best Time to Visit, October to March. Lahore's summer is fierce and the Walled City offers little shade; December and January can be heavily smog-bound.
Getting there, All within Lahore. The Walled City monuments — the gates, Mariam Zamani, Wazir Khan's Baradari and Hammam — sit close enough to walk between; Shahdara, Baghbanpura and Mughalpura are a short drive out.
Allow, Thirty minutes to an hour at each; a full day for the Walled City circuit.
Straight-line distance from Wazir Khan's Hammam, within 30 km.
