St Paul's Cathedral and the City of London
The dome of St Paul's has watched over the City of London for three hundred years. Around it, in the "Square Mile", were the offices that financed, insured and profited from the slave trade and the empire: the Royal African Company, the South Sea Company, Lloyd's, the Bank of England. Several have now apologised. This is a walk through both the beauty and the bookkeeping.
Overview: the Square Mile
The City of London is the old walled city, about a square mile in size, now one of the world's great financial centres. It has its own Lord Mayor, its own police force and a local authority, the City of London Corporation, whose roots go back to the Middle Ages. By day it is packed with office workers. At weekends parts of it are almost empty, which is the best time to explore.
For three centuries the City financed Britain's trade with Africa, the Caribbean and Asia, including the trade in enslaved Africans. Since 2020 several of its oldest institutions have researched that history and published what they found. Walking the City now, you can see the buildings and read what the institutions themselves say about their pasts.
- St Paul's Cathedral: designed by Sir Christopher Wren, built 1675–1710 after the Great Fire of 1666
- Tickets: sightseeing £27 for adults in 2026 (cathedral floor, crypt and dome galleries); services are free
- Royal African Company: based in the City from 1660; transported more enslaved Africans than any other British institution
- Lloyd's: apologised in 2020 for its role in insuring the slave trade; published research in 2023
- Bank of England: apologised in 2020; found in 2022 that it had owned 599 enslaved people on Grenada plantations in the 1770s
- Guildhall: statues of William Beckford and Sir John Cass kept in place with explanatory plaques
The cathedral
A cathedral has stood on Ludgate Hill for more than 1,400 years. The medieval St Paul's burned in the Great Fire of 1666, and Sir Christopher Wren designed its replacement: an English Baroque masterpiece with one of the largest domes in the world. Built between 1675 and 1710, it was the first English cathedral completed within the lifetime of its architect. Wren is buried in the crypt, under the words "Reader, if you seek his monument, look around you."
Inside, climb to the Whispering Gallery, then to the Stone and Golden Galleries for views over the City. The crypt, one of the largest in Europe, holds the tombs of Nelson and Wellington and more than 200 memorials. It has seen royal weddings, state funerals and, in the Blitz of 1940, survived as the famous symbol of London standing amid the smoke.
Monuments of empire
St Paul's is crowded with marble monuments to the soldiers, sailors and administrators of the British Empire. Among them is a memorial to General Charles Gordon, killed at Khartoum in Sudan in 1885, who became a national hero. Others commemorate officers who died in India, the Caribbean and Africa. The cathedral has begun to tell their stories more fully: its online collections now include studies of the East India Company at St Paul's and of the monuments connected with war and resistance in the Caribbean.
Look out for the names, and for the people who are not named: the Africans, Indians and Caribbean people these men fought, ruled or depended on. For the Sudan story, see our planned page on Britain and Sudan: Gordon and Omdurman.
The trading companies
In 1660, soon after the restoration of the monarchy, a company of royals and City merchants was granted a monopoly on English trade with Africa. Reorganised in 1672 as the Royal African Company, it ran the English forts on the Gold Coast, including Cape Coast Castle, and transported more enslaved Africans to the Americas than any other single British institution. One of its prominent figures was Sir John Cass, the City merchant and MP. The City of London Corporation estimates that the company trafficked up to 150,000 people. Read the full story on our page on the Royal African Company and the Gold Coast forts.
After 1713, the South Sea Company, based on Threadneedle Street, held the "Asiento", the contract to supply enslaved Africans to Spanish America. It is better remembered for the "South Sea Bubble" financial crash of 1720.
Lloyd's: insuring the trade
Lloyd's began in the 1680s as Edward Lloyd's coffee house, where merchants and shipowners met to insure voyages. Slave ships were among the voyages insured, with enslaved people sometimes listed as cargo alongside livestock. In June 2020 Lloyd's apologised for its role in the transatlantic slave trade and commissioned independent research.
That research, by the Black Beyond Data project at Johns Hopkins University, was published in November 2023 as the digital exhibition Underwriting Souls. It concluded that the Lloyd's market had played a significant role in enabling the slave trade and benefited from it. One of its chairmen, Joseph Marryat (1811–1824), was himself an owner of enslaved people. Lloyd's apologised again and committed around £52 million to programmes for people of African descent, including investment through the African Development Bank. The famous Richard Rogers building on Lime Street, with its pipes and lifts on the outside, is worth seeing from the street.
The Bank of England
Founded in 1694, the Bank of England is the country's central bank. In 2020 research by University College London identified 11 former governors and 16 directors with links to slavery, and the Bank apologised. It took down portraits of directors with slavery links. In 2022 its museum opened the exhibition Slavery and the Bank, which revealed that in the 1770s the Bank had taken over two plantations in Grenada from a debtor and with them 599 enslaved people, whose names were recorded in an inventory of 1788. The exhibition ran until February 2024, and the Bank has committed to including this history in its permanent displays.
The Bank of England Museum on Bartholomew Lane is free to visit.
The Guildhall statues: Beckford and Cass
The Guildhall, home of the City of London Corporation, contains two statues that became the centre of a national debate in 2020–21. William Beckford, twice Lord Mayor of London in the 1760s, was a Jamaican plantation owner and one of the richest enslavers of his time. Sir John Cass was a key figure in the Royal African Company. In January 2021 the Corporation voted to remove both statues. In October 2021, after the government announced its "retain and explain" policy, it reversed that decision. Both statues stay, with plaques explaining the men's links to slavery. Beckford's stands in the Grade I listed Great Hall, Cass's in the South Ambulatory.
Elsewhere in London, the Sir John Cass Foundation primary school and City, University of London's business school both dropped Cass's name. For the Bath connection, see Bath, the Roman Baths and Georgian money, which covers Beckford's son and his tower.
A City walk
- St Paul's Cathedral: start here; allow two hours inside.
- Guildhall: a ten-minute walk east via Cheapside. See the Great Hall (when open) and the Guildhall Art Gallery, with London's Roman amphitheatre in its basement. The gallery is free.
- Bank of England Museum: on Bartholomew Lane, behind the Bank's great windowless walls. Free.
- Royal Exchange and Threadneedle Street: the old heart of the City's trading, and the site of the South Sea Company.
- Lloyd's building, Lime Street: view the Richard Rogers building from outside.
- Leadenhall Market: Victorian covered market for a drink or lunch.
- The Monument: Wren's column to the Great Fire, with a staircase to the top.
For the docks where the sugar and other goods arrived, continue to the Museum of London Docklands.
Practical guide
- St Paul's sightseeing: Monday to Saturday. Adult £27 in 2026 (seniors £24), including the crypt, dome galleries and multimedia guide. Book online.
- Services: free and open to all, including evensong most afternoons, a beautiful and free way to experience the building.
- Getting there: St Paul's (Central line), Mansion House, Bank and City Thameslink stations are all close.
- Best time: St Paul's opens early on weekdays; the City streets are quietest at weekends, though some sites close then.
More London: our London hub and first-time-in-London practical guide.
Tours and experiences
Our tour partner offers London walking tours, including the City and St Paul's, and tours along Ghana's coast for those who want to see the forts the City's companies built. Entrance fees are included in the tour price where a tour visits paying sites. Tips are not included but are always welcome.
Read next
The City company that ran the slave forts of Ghana.
How the City financed the payout to enslavers in 1835.
Where plantation fortunes went to take the waters.
London's great museum and its contested collections.
The hub for every Britain and Africa history page on this site.
The African side of the story
Britain Adventures is part of a network of independent sites on Africa and its history. These are the places where the stories on this page continue:
- Pan-African: African Independence · Uganda · Egypt · Sierra Leone · All African Radio Stations
- Ghana: Ghana-Net · Cape Coast Castle · Elmina Castle · James Fort, Accra · They Made Ghana · War Cemetery Cape Coast
- Across Africa: Kenya Web News · Explore Nigeria · Gambia Vibes · Zambia Vibes
- European history: V2 Rocket and Peenemünde · Tannenberg Memorial
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