Bhaktivedanta Manor (ISKCON Watford)ਭਕਤੀਵੇਦਾਂਤ ਮੈਨਰ, ਵਾਟਫੋਰਡ

Bhaktivedanta Manor does not look like a temple at all, and that is the point of its story. Behind the hedges of Letchmore Heath, a Hertfordshire village near Watford, stands a black and white mock Tudor country house, all gables and tall chimneys, set in lawns and farmland. Since 1973 this unlikely building has been the United Kingdom headquarters of the Hare Krishna movement, given to it by George Harrison of the Beatles, and its Janmashtami festival now draws crowds of up to 60,000 people.

What is Bhaktivedanta Manor?

Bhaktivedanta Manor is a Gaudiya Vaishnava Hindu temple in Letchmore Heath near Watford, Hertfordshire, England. It is run by ISKCON, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, and is ISKCON's largest property in the United Kingdom and one of the most visited Radha Krishna temples in Europe. The temple room holds three shrines: Radha and Krishna as Radha Gokulananda, Gaura Nitai, and Sita, Rama, Lakshmana and Hanuman. The house itself is Grade II listed on the National Heritage List for England. On Jugti it sits alongside ISKCON's North American centres, ISKCON Toronto, ISKCON Vancouver and New Vrindaban, and near the birthplace tradition honoured at Krishna Janmasthan in Mathura.

George Harrison and the gift of the manor

The manor was previously called Piggott's Manor. A mock Tudor mansion had been built on the site in 1884, and from 1957 to 1972 it served as a nurses' training college for St Bartholomew's Hospital. Meanwhile ISKCON's London temple, the Radha Krishna Temple at Bury Place in Bloomsbury, opened in 1969, had become far too small, with devotees reportedly sleeping on the stairs. George Harrison, who had helped the young movement and recorded the Hare Krishna mantra with its devotees, asked the British devotee Dhananjaya Das to find a larger property near London. In February 1973 Harrison bought Piggott's Manor with its 17 acres and donated it to ISKCON.

The estate was renamed for ISKCON's founder, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, and Prabhupada himself installed the Radha Krishna deities there on Janmashtami, 21 August 1973. He visited that summer and returned on later trips; his final journey outside India, in August and September 1977, included a stay at the manor shortly before his death in Vrindavan. Prabhupada called Harrison the movement's archangel for this and other gifts. Harrison kept visiting for the rest of his life, and the manor still marks his death each year on 29 November with an evening of remembrance and his music. A George Harrison Memorial Garden opened in the grounds in 2013, forty years after the gift.

The campaign to save the temple

Success nearly closed the manor. By the late 1970s thousands of London Hindus were driving through the small village of Aldenham to reach it, and the 1979 and 1980 Janmashtami festivals drew up to 15,000 visitors a day. Hertsmere Borough Council, which had allowed the site as a theological college, moved in 1981 to ban festivals there, and in January 1987 issued an enforcement notice to close the temple to the public. Years of inquiries and court cases followed, through the High Court, the Court of Appeal and the European Court of Human Rights, and a closure date of 16 March 1994 was set. That day, an estimated 36,000 supporters marched in London in protest.

The turning point was land and a road. The devotees bought neighbouring fields and proposed a new access road from the A41 that would bypass Aldenham entirely. In 1996 the Department of the Environment granted permission, noting that the manor was unique in Britain, with no comparable alternative for teaching, worship and meditation. The road was built, and by the September 1998 Janmashtami some 60,000 visitors came, a figure the festival has reached regularly since.

Inside the manor today

All activity centres on the temple room, where the three shrines stand in a carved wood and gilt altar. Around the house, the estate has grown from the original 17 acres to 78 acres, as the temple's own site describes it: gardens, an organic farm, a protected herd of cows kept under ahimsa principles, a theological college, a primary school, a bakery and a small theatre for devotional drama. A woodland walk is marked with verses from the Bhagavad Gita, and a modern haveli building, planned to serve the community's social and spiritual needs, was completed in 2020. About 40 monks live on site, and the kitchens also prepare meals for homeless people.

Janmashtami: 60,000 guests for Krishna's birthday

Janmashtami, the celebration of Krishna's birth, is the manor's great annual event. What began with 15,000 visitors a day in 1979 now brings up to 60,000 people, and it has become a ticketed festival spread over several days, with music, drama, food and craft stalls and a decorated forest retelling scenes from Krishna's childhood. In 2023 the manor celebrated its 50th annual Janmashtami, the same year it marked fifty years since Harrison's gift. Diwali is the other major festival in its calendar.

Visiting Bhaktivedanta Manor

The manor welcomes visitors of every background, and its official site offers guided introductions for first time guests. It stands on Hilfield Lane in Letchmore Heath, near Watford, and is reached by road; the village itself has no railway station, so most visitors drive or take a taxi from Watford, Radlett or Elstree and Borehamwood. Expect festival days to be extremely busy, and book Janmashtami tickets ahead through the temple. Dress modestly, remove shoes for the temple room, and leave time for the gardens and the memorial garden as well as the shrine.