The East India Company – Guided by a Distinguished Diplomat
Monument Tube, Fish Street Hill exit
Guided by Lisa
Adult: £20 · Students & Seniors: £15 · Children: £5
Walk Times
| Day | Walk Type | Start Time | End Time | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19 October 2026 | Tour du Jour | 2 pm | 4 pm | Summer | Reserve Online |
| 30 October 2026 | Tour du Jour | 10.30 am | 12.30 pm | Summer | Reserve Online |
| 14 November 2026 | Tour du Jour | 10.45 am | 12.45 pm | Winter | Reserve Online |
| 1 January 2027 | Tour du Jour | 10.30 am | 12.30 pm | Winter | Reserve Online |
Join distinguished former diplomat and qualified City of London Green Badge guide, Lisa Honan CBE, for a captivating East India Company walking tour through the historic streets of the City of London. Discover the fascinating, and often dark, history of the world’s most powerful multinational corporation and its lasting impact on the Indian subcontinent, global trade, and modern society.
Lisa Honan CBE in action, guiding our East India Company Walk. Former diplomat, former Governor of St Helena, and a guide with quite a story to tell.
Want to meet your guide before you meet your guide? Read: Meet Your Guide: Her Excellency Lisa Honan CBE.
A Unique History Walk with a Former Governor
As a former Governor of St Helena – a critical East India Company stronghold – Lisa offers unique, firsthand insights into the corporation’s legacy that you simply will not find on any other tour.
For the record, Lisa was the first female Governor in the territory’s 500-year history. She lived in the 1792 East India Company Governor’s mansion – the very same house where her 19th-century predecessor, Sir Hudson Lowe, lived while guarding Napoleon Bonaparte during his exile. (She even shared her front garden with Jonathan, the world’s oldest land animal – a giant tortoise.)
Jonathan, the world’s oldest living land animal, in the grounds of Plantation House, St Helena, where London Walks guide Lisa Honan CBE lived as Governor.
Her personal connection to this history makes this one of the most authentically led historical walks in London.
“The craving for power and wealth is an atavistic instinct. The lust for conquest is part of the human condition. The spirit of imperialism is not dead: it haunts the modern world and its manifestations are legion” – Piers Brendon
What to Expect on the TourOn this immersive City of London walking tour, you will trace the footsteps of merchants, adventurers, and corporate imperialists. Drawing on her distinguished diplomatic career and extensive archival research, Lisa takes you to the exact sites where history was made, laying bare the company’s story from 1600 to the present day.
Highlights of the walk include:
- The Original Courtyard: Stand exactly where the East India Company began its 17th-century operations.
- Global Trade & Monopoly: Learn how the company revolutionised what the world ate, drank, and wore through its aggressive trade networks across India, Indonesia, and China.
- Corporate Power & Conflict: Uncover how a private corporation amassed its own private army, ruled over 300 million people in India, and incidentally sparked the Boston Tea Party.
- The Dark Side of Trade: We do not gloss over the brutality. We explore the systemic corruption, the “sustained protection racket” of colonial rule in India, and the exploitation that defined the company’s 300-year reign.Exclusive Archival Research: Hear untold histories based on Lisa’s own original research into the St Helena archives, revealing the East India Company’s hidden connections to slavery.
You go on this walk, and matters of world-historical importance brush you with their wings. The East India Company wasn’t just the largest and most powerful multinational corporation in the world—it was history’s fulcrum.
Tour Details & Booking
- Duration: 2 hours 15 mins
- Meeting Point: Monument Tube Station (Fish Street Hill exit).
- End Point: The Royal Exchange (Bank Underground Station is just a few yards away).
This highly rated historical walking tour is perfect for anyone interested in the history of the Indian subcontinent, the spice trade, corporate history, and London’s hidden past. Reserve your place online today to experience history where it actually happened.
IT ALL COMES DOWN TO THE GUIDING
Sophie –
Such an informative and interesting tour. Would definitely recommend. I learnt a lot about the East India Company and got to see the City in a new light.
Jenny –
Thanks Lisa. An excellent introduction to the East India Company and the history of it’s London activities. Lisa has researched her topic well and created an interesting walk around the Company’s London locations, their offices, warehouses and places of worship. Her manner is friendly and easy so the walk is always lively and intriguing. But that’s not to say that she doesn’t tell it like it was for the harsher facts, she doesn’t gloss the darker part of the Company’s history. Definitely one of the better history walks. The East India Company ventures were so important to our social, cultural and commercial history. Let Lisa tell you the story and see London’s history in a different light! Highly recommended
Cynthia Rowe –
Had a brilliant tour with Lisa! It was fun, engaging and shook me out my complacency that I knew all about the East India Company! I learnt alot and particularly enjoyed the looking at this remarkable and often disturbing part of history through the grand buildings as well as the nooks and crannies of London. Would highly recommend this tour!
Linda –
I just loved the Tour so expertly guided by Lisa today. Lisa has the most congenial personality and is both welcoming and engaging, sharing her personal interest and passionate knowledge of the East India Company with an infectious enthusiasm. She took us on a journey of discovery, so well paced and accessible from the genesis of the company from its small beginnings to its exponential growth and shocking excesses to its final demise. I cannot recommend Lisa more highly. Thank you
Stella Barlow –
Very interesting and enjoyable. The guide was excellent and extremely knowledgeable. I would thoroughly recommend this walk.
John Beale –
Lisa proved a knowledgeable and engaging guide. She brought to life the amazing exploits of the East India Company, its people and its overall legacy in shaping the modern world. Not only did the company rule India and lay the foundations for the British Empire under Victoria, but it also had a hand in the events leading up to the Boston Tea Party (American Independence) and the Opium Wars with China. Lisa showed us where it all began and how it developed until the company’s demise after the Indian Mutiny.