Case study: Designing a Private Walking Tour in London’s Square Mile for a Multifaith Chaplaincy Team

In July 2025, Rabbi Alex contacted me about a private walking tour for a multifaith chaplaincy team meeting in the City of London. The group included Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Sikh, Hindu and Humanist chaplains.  He was looking for “history and a bit of religious history” in the Square Mile, with references to more than one faith tradition and an awareness that there are dozens of churches packed into this tiny area.

They were drawn to my more mystical, symbol‑rich City tours, but wanted to avoid anything that might feel overly esoteric or “occult” in tone. In practice I adapted the route and emphasis: keeping the focus on how symbols, myths and legends shaped the City’s history, money, power, guilds and finance, and being mindful not to go too deep into the more metaphysical side of the material.

Designing the route

I proposed a route that blended my Mystical & Dragons tour with elements from my historical City walk. We started at Guildhall to frame the City as a 2,000‑year‑old power centre with its own symbols, rituals and governance – from Roman Londinium to the medieval guilds and today’s financial district.

From there, we:

• Visited the Roman amphitheatre remains under Guildhall Art Gallery and used them to talk about empire, spectacle and public power.

• Stopped at St Lawrence Jewry to explore Jewish–Christian layers in the City’s story and the presence of Jewish life around the Square Mile.

• Stepped into churches such as St Mary Aldermary, St Mary Woolnoth, St Mary-le-Bow and St Bride’s to look at how Christian, Celtic and classical motifs overlap in stone, glass and layout.

• Wove in the London Mithraeum and Roman paganism as “deep foundations” beneath later religious and civic narratives.

• Used the Bank of England and Royal Exchange as live backdrops to discuss ethics, debt, slavery, and how belief systems inform ideas of trust and value.

We also highlighted London’s historic connections with the Ottoman and wider Islamic worlds through trade and diplomacy, as part of the City’s long global story.

Outcome

Over roughly 2.5 hours, the chaplains engaged deeply with the stories, symbols and places we explored, with plenty of questions and discussion along the way. The route balance – dragons and myths, guilds and finance, churches and Roman remains – gave them a sense of the City as a living, layered landscape rather than a set of disconnected sites.

After the tour, Rabbi Alex messaged: “Thank you so very much for yesterday. It was great fun. And it meant a lot. The team loved you.”.
One of the participants, Peter Archibald, also left a public review on Google:

“I am so glad I joined this tour of mythical symbolism, history and finance in the Square Mile. I’m very resistant to being told what to do and think, so this was a revelation for me! Arjun created a compelling narrative that encompassed the founding of the City of London, its history of co-operation through the Guilds and its power and autonomy from the Norman invasion to the present day. I can thoroughly recommend this immersive experience!”

What the experience meant for me

During the tour we had a great time getting to know each other through questions, discussions and plenty of banter and jokes along the way. For me, the group felt like a spiritual team of superheroes who had come together in celebration and appreciation of each other’s faiths – a living example of “unity through diversity”, which is much easier said than done.  They were exemplary.

The feedback I received was very encouraging and helped me realise that this tour is not as niche as I once thought. After all, it resonated with a group of people from very diverse backgrounds and beliefs. Their responses also underline what this kind of bespoke group tour can do: give thoughtful professionals a rigorous, story‑driven way into the City’s dragons, symbols and power structures, sparking insights that connect with their own work and beliefs.