The red-brick Standard Life Building has carved nymphs and wonderful wrought-iron balconies at the rear. Since 2014, work has begun at removing decades of grime from the north facade, so that the fine details can be fully appreciated once again.
Standard Life Building
Kolkata (Calcutta)
Lonely Planet's must-see attractions
4.29 MILES
Set very attractively amid palms and manicured lawns, this large religious centre is the headquarters of the Ramakrishna Mission, inspired by 19th-century…
1.81 MILES
The incredible Victoria Memorial is a vast, beautifully proportioned festival of white marble: think US Capitol meets Taj Mahal. Had it been built for a…
3.89 MILES
Despite being an awkward journey by public transport, Kolkata’s lovely 109-hectare Botanical Gardens makes for a great place to escape from the city’s…
2.2 MILES
Countless clay effigies of deities and demons immersed in the Hooghly during Kolkata’s colourful pujas (offering or prayers) are created in specialist…
1.07 MILES
Built in 1835 by a raja from the prosperous Mallick family, this resplendent mansion is as grand as it is curious. Its marble-draped halls are overstuffed…
0.88 MILES
India's biggest and oldest major museum celebrated its bicentenary in February 2014. It's mostly a lovably old-fashioned place that fills a large…
1.19 MILES
The stately 1784 family mansion of Rabindranath Tagore has become a shrine-like museum to India’s greatest modern poet. Even if his personal effects don’t…
3.51 MILES
This ancient Kali temple is Kolkata’s holiest spot for Hindus, and possibly the source of the city’s name. Today’s version is the 1809 rebuild, with…
Nearby Kolkata (Calcutta) attractions
0.06 MILES
Majestically bearded and dressed in warrior costume yet sitting merrily cross-legged, this delightful statue gives Maharaja Lakshmeshwar Singh of…
0.11 MILES
Home to the Reserve Bank of India until 1937, the stabilised ruins of the once-magnificent Currency Building now houses a small exhibition about the…
0.14 MILES
One of the most iconic buildings on BBD Bagh is the old General Post Office, with its central rotunda soaring nearly 40m around a statue of a lance…
0.17 MILES
This stone-spired 1787 church is ringed by columns and contains a small, portrait-draped room once used as an office by Warren Hastings, India’s first…
0.19 MILES
At the rear northwest corner of St John's Church grounds, there's a small gated cemetery partly paved with 18th-century grave stones. The centrepiece of…
0.2 MILES
This slender white monolith, standing atop an octagonal base adorned with marble plaques, commemorates those British officials who died in the siege of…
0.21 MILES
Hidden almost invisibly behind BBD Bagh, this Protestant church is Kolkata's second-oldest place of Christian worship, dating to 1770.
0.22 MILES
Foremost among BBD Bagh's grand colonial structures are the 1780 Writers’ Buildings, a twin-block office complex whose glorious south facade looks…