The London Project #4 – Giant Hindu Temple

Transport yourself to southeast Asia with a visit to BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in Neasden, north west London.  This incredibly beautiful Hindu temple is open free of charge to all members of the public, regardless of faith, and there is a shop, cafe and restaurant nearby so you can make a nice half day outing of it. I can recommend the “spicy cake” for something unusual! (Heads up: we’re not just talking cinnamon here…)

At the time of its completion in 1995, Neasden temple was the largest Hindu temple outside of India. The £12m project was funded entirely by the local community of worshippers, who raised money through initiatives such as aluminium can recycling (before it became the norm); sponsored walks, and cultural shows. It was the first temple in the UK to be built from scratch, rather than a conversion of an existing building, and it conforms to India’s ancient architectural texts, the Vastu Shastras. The temple is entirely made of stone, with no iron or steel used in its construction. While trying to follow these ancient guidelines the project team also of course had to meet the requirements of the UK’s stringent building code, as well as take into account the British climate. Not an easy task! After rigorous testing of a variety of types of stone, eventually a combination was chosen of Bulgarian limestone on the exterior, and Indian and Italian marble on the interior.

Since the most skilled and experienced craftsmen of Hindu architecture are naturally found in India, the stone was shipped from Europe to a port in Gujarat. Over two years, thousands of tonnes of stone were transported between the continents. Workshops were set up near the port, and a mini-township developed to cater for the 650 artisans who crafted the stones. Yet more workshops were set up in other locations around India: at its peak, 1,526 stone carvers were working on the project at 14 sites across the country. This was intricate work. A deep-carved column would take four full-time craftsmen each working on one side of the column about 60 days to complete. Once carving and quality control was complete, a total of 26,300 pieces of sculpture was shipped to Britain without a single breakage.  80 stonemasons and an army of volunteers assembled the pieces in London, and the temple was finally inaugurated in August 1995.

Visiting the temple, the first thing to remember is as it is of course a place of worship you must dress appropriately. Unless it’s a heatwave this is probably more relevant for girls, but merely a case of making sure you’re not wearing a miniskirt really. On arrival you have to put your cameras and handbags in a manned cloakroom before entering the first part of the complex: the Haveli.  This is a cultural centre attached to the temple, striking for its intricate oak and teak wooden carvings that give the place a homely feel. The Haveli follows traditional design, but in fact never in the previous 100 years had such a haveli been constructed in India let alone elsewhere in the world. Happily the Neasden example seems to have led to a revival of this architectural style, with similar buildings now in Nairobi, Chicago, Toronto and India.

Visitors leave their shoes in the Haveli before wandering through to the mandir (stone temple). There is an exhibition about the history of Hinduism you can pay a small fee to enter, or just follow through to the main attraction. All I will say is that is really is quite beautiful, and I found the symmetry of the ceiling carvings particularly captivating. The postcards available at the shop afterwards just don’t capture the magical calming sense of the place: you really should take a look for yourself 🙂

This post is part of The London Project series, discovering hidden stories in London based on a Word Map of the city by Angus McArthur and Alison Hardcastle.