Death threats and a hotel siege for the Britons trapped in the Indian Mutiny 2007

But when a British tour party arrived in the northern city of Lucknow - scene of one of the mutiny's most brutal battles - their reception was far from peaceful.

Chanting anti-British slogans, an angry mob pelted their tour bus with rubbish and dirty water before laying siege to the group's hotel.

The building was last night barricaded by police after the visitors received death threats.

The party of around 40 Britons - many of them elderly and some of them descendants of those killed in 1857 - were unable to leave as scores of nationalist protesters shouted "English go home" and called them "descendants of savages".

So deep was their illfeeling that one Hindu leader even called for the tourists to be executed.

Anil Tiwari, a member of the World Hindu Council in Lucknow, said: "These visitors should be hanged from a tree and their bodies put on the first flight out of India.

"They have no business honouring their dead when so many Indians were massacred so ruthlessly."

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Muslim clerics joined their arch enemies - Hindu fundamentalists - in saying they would allow no "celebration" of the anniversary.

Hugh Purcell, a historian with the group, was dismayed by the reception the visitors had received.

"Media reports spoke of how we were conducting a 'victory celebration' when all we were doing was commemorating the event," he said.

"We are disappointed, embarrassed and feeling harassed. We are all deep lovers of India and came here in a spirit of inquiry and respectfulness."

He said the visitors were coping "stoically" and that older women on the trip, one aged 80, were "solid memsahibs with a stiff upper lip".

"Frankly, it hasn't been much of a holiday," he added.

Dr Rosie Llewellyn- Jones, a writer with the group, said: "We want to understand the Indian point of view and to remember the brave dead on both sides."

The trouble for the tour party - which is made up of Britons with links to the Rifles regiments, historians, and descendants of military families - started as soon as they arrived in India ten days ago.

Protesters stormed the lobby of their hotel in Agra in the north and an angry mob also greeted them when they travelled south to Gwalior.

They finally arrived in Lucknow on Monday. The Siege of Lucknow was one of the key events in the rebellion. When it finally ended in 1858, thousands of Indians and Britons had died, including Lucknow's Chief Commissioner Sir Henry Lawrence.

Last night his great-great grandson, also called Sir Henry Lawrence, 55, was among those caught up in the modern-day siege at the Residency Hotel.

Also on the trip is Sir Mark Havelock-Allan, a senior judge whose great-great grandfather was Major-General Henry Havelock. He led a relief force during the siege but died in the city from exhaustion and dysentery days after it ended.

His statue now stands in Trafalgar Square.

The group were yesterday unable to fulfil their plan to visit a graveyard where some 2,000 Britons are buried.

Today they will try to leave for Kanpur, where the bodies of more than 100 slaughtered English women and children were thrown into the Ganges.

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• The Indian Mutiny was an uprising by native soldiers against the ruling British East India Company.

In 1857, growing tension was inflamed by rumours that Indian soldiers' rifle cartridges were being greased with pig and cow fat, offending Muslims and Hindus alike.

The unrest erupted in earnest in May. Delhi soon fell and there were further uprisings elsewhere.

In Lucknow, Chief Commissioner Sir Henry Lawrence fortified his home - the Residency - and prepared for a siege. Mutineers attacked the Residency and its 1,700-strong garrison in May and by July Sir Henry was dead.

Garrison numbers dwindled until a relief force under Major-General Sir Henry Havelock fought its way into Lucknow in September.

The Residency was evacuated in November but was recaptured in March the following year and the uprising was crushed soon after.

The East India Company was subsequently abolished and the government of India transferred to the Crown.