My first visit to the Hindu temple in Neasden, London: the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir.
This is an absolute must see if you’re in London and havnt been yet. It’s a 70 feet high, intricately carved building made entirely out of stone. I believe it is all hand carved and it certainly did not use modern architecture techniques. As a regular visitor you are limited to certain places you can’t get round the back and yoh can walk inside but not take photos. This was such a shame as the inside was even more amazing than the outside. It has two main rooms and they are both covered in intricate carvings: the top room has a huge carved dome and all around the edges glass prayer rooms with golden and Jewell clad statues of deities inside. They only open the doors at certain times so we were lucky to catch it in its full glory. As a photographer my hands were literally itching to film it all but I guess they don’t want random bloggers with selfie sticks ruining the vibe 🤣.
This mandir is constructed out of 5,000 tonnes of Indian and Italian marble and Bulgarian limestone. The raw materials were first shipped to a town called kandla in India and there 650 stone masons set to work on the art.
Back in the Uk however the local community crowd sourced the £12 million required to build what at the time was the largest Hindu temple outside of India.
over the road they have an Indian restaurant and huge super store where I got some delicious cheap kesar mangos and some other fruits I’ve never tried before as I like to try absolutely everything that’s a new fruit to me.
I’ll post a full video to go with the short soon but for now enjoy the pics.
Full video coming soon
▶️ DTube