Guru Gobind Singh Ji built five forts around Anandpur: Anandgarh, Keshgarh, Lohgarh, Fatehgarh and Holgarh, positioned to cover the approaches to the town.
Keshgarh is where the Khalsa was created in 1699 and is now a takht. Anandgarh was the principal defensive work. Lohgarh guarded the approach where the elephant was sent against the gate.
They were built of brick and stone against hill-state and imperial forces, held through repeated sieges from the 1690s, and abandoned in December 1704.
What survives is fragmentary. Gurdwaras stand on the sites and the fabric has been rebuilt many times.
There has been no archaeological work at Anandpur of any consequence, which means the physical evidence for the sieges, the defences and the town's layout in 1700 is unexamined.
The place where the Khalsa was founded has been rebuilt in marble and never excavated.
Anandgarh was the main fort and the strongest, and its baoli survives. Fatehgarh and Holgarh stand on the edge of the present town and Taragarh is some distance out.
The siege of 1704 was conducted by hill state forces and Mughal troops together and lasted months. The evacuation in December and the crossing of the Sarsa in flood is where the family was separated.
The gurdwaras on the fort sites were built and rebuilt through the twentieth century, including in the works around the 1999 tercentenary, and the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee announced a further restoration of all five forts in 2014. Whatever lay under them was not recorded first.