The serai at Nurmahal in Jalandhar district was built between about 1618 and 1621 and is attributed to Nur Jahan, whose title gives the town its name.
Its two gateways are carved sandstone with figurative panels of animals, hunters and mythological scenes, which is unusual for a Mughal utilitarian building and unusual for the period.
The enclosure is large, with cells around a courtyard, and it functioned as a stage on the road from Delhi to Lahore.
It is a protected monument. Its condition has been the subject of periodic concern and periodic partial restoration.
The carving alone would make it notable anywhere else. In Punjab it is a building on the edge of a small town that people drive past.
The serai was one of a chain built along the imperial road at roughly a day's march apart, and Nurmahal's is the best preserved of those surviving in Indian Punjab. The chain was the infrastructure of the empire and almost nothing else of it stands.
The figurative carving on the gateways is the unusual part. Mughal serai gateways are generally geometric or floral, and the animal and human panels here are closer to the sculptural tradition of the region than to imperial architectural practice.
The building is used by the town around it. Its condition has been raised repeatedly by conservation bodies and the interventions have been intermittent. It is on no tourist circuit and there is no interpretive material at the site.