The building then became the Residency, and was the site of a battery employed by British troops during the Indian rebellion of 1857 to successfully breach the Kashmiri Gate bastion and thereafter to retake the city.
By this time also, the rebels had become depressed through lack of supplies and money, and by defeatist rumours which were spread by agents and spies organised by William Hodson.
From 5 to 9 February 1870, Prince Alfred, the second son of Queen Victoria and the then Duke of Edinburgh, was the guest of the Commissioner of Delhi, Col. McNeile, in Ludlow Castle.
The road to the Lahore Gate was beautifully illuminated with coloured lamps hanging from the trees; the effect was excellent, and free from the formality of continuous lines of light.
There were triumphal arches in the Chandney Chowk and Dureeba, and up to the front of the steps of the Jumma Musjid was one continuous blaze of Bengal lights and other forms of illumination.
The streets, and every house-top, window and balcony were crowded; numbers preceding the elephants, joining the European soldiers in loud hurrahs, made a most exciting scene.
[3] In February 1879,[4] Ulysses S. Grant, on a tour of India, after two terms as US President, was a guest of the then commissioner of Delhi, G. Gordon Young, in Ludlow Castle.
[5] After being received at the Delhi Railway Station, Mr. and Mrs. Grant were driven to Ludlow Castle, while the rest of the party found lodgings in nearby hotels.
[5] For the next few days, Grant and party visited historic monuments in the city, including the Red Fort, the Qutub Minar and the Jama Masjid.
[5] Accompanying General Grant was the American journalist John Russell Young, whose experience of the Jama Masjid was more sober: This mosque even now is one of the noblest buildings in India.