This famous hill station in the Nillgiri Hills was founded by the British in the early part of the 19th century to serve as the summer headquarters of the Madras government. Untill about two decades ago, Snooty Ooty resembled an unlikely comnination of southern England and Australia: single-storey stone cottages, bijou fenced flower gardens, leafy, winding lanes, and tall eucalypt stands covering the otherwise barren hilltops.
The other main reminders of the British period are the stone churches, the private schools, the Ooty club, various maharajas' summer palaces and the terraced botanical gardens.