Bashid Agha diwanxana • ديوان باشيد اغا

This lovely old house dates to 1903-1905 and features a pavilion with a fountain.

House 2/2, which will serve as the VIP Reception Centre, is dated by an inscribed moorhead to 1903-05. It was partially reconstructed in the 1980s. The perimeter wing is raised over a semi-basement and fronted by a portico supported on a five-bay Mosul-alabaster arcade, with alabaster panelling on the front of the base of the portico as well. The main reception room, which is T-shaped, is richly decorated with moulded plasterwork, arched niches with scallop ornament and blue-on-white painted decoration, which has been renewed, as have the wooden ceilings. French windows open onto a balcony supported on an arched substructure build out from the main façade. There is a highly decorative niche at the eastern end of the main reception room. HCECR, p 65