Handyside Fort was built by the British in the 1850s and named after General Handyside, one of the commanders associated with the garrison. It occupies a commanding position on the ridge above the town — the kind of site that a military engineer would choose without hesitation — and gives a clear sense of how the British thought about Kohat: as a place to be held and watched from above. The fort's walls and bastions are still largely intact.
The fort is occupied by the Pakistani Army and is not open to the public. You will not get in. What you can do is see it clearly from the road below, which is enough to understand its scale and its strategic logic. If the history of the Northwest Frontier interests you, standing at the base of that ridge and looking up at the walls that were built to police the Kohat Pass is its own kind of experience.