Gurdwara Sahib Leamington and Warwickਗੁਰਦੁਆਰਾ ਸਾਹਿਬ ਲੈਮਿੰਗਟਨ ਅਤੇ ਵਾਰਵਿਕ

The Gurdwara Sahib Leamington and Warwick stands on Tachbrook Park Drive in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, and is the third largest purpose built Sikh gurdwara in the United Kingdom. Opened on 25 October 2009 after nine years of planning, the 11 million pound temple serves the sangat of Leamington, Warwick and Kenilworth, and is an entry in our guide to Gurdwaras in the UK.

What is the Gurdwara Sahib Leamington and Warwick?

It is a gurdwara, the Sikh place of worship, whose name means the doorway to the Guru. Its prayer halls centre on the Guru Granth Sahib Ji, the Sikh scripture honoured as the eternal Guru, and its langar serves the free vegetarian meal to all who come. The gurdwara describes itself, through its official site, as an amalgamation of the sangat, the congregation, from Leamington Spa, Warwick, Kenilworth and the surrounding villages, and it states its welcome plainly: all are welcome regardless of faith, colour or creed, because the Sikh faith teaches tolerance of all faiths and respect for all humanity. In size and ambition it is a national landmark: the third largest purpose built gurdwara in the UK.

History: nine years of planning, eighteen months of building

The temple was built for the 7,000 Sikhs living in the Leamington and Warwick area, and it took nine years of planning before construction began. In March 2008 the local building contractors AC Lloyd started work, and the building took 18 months. The whole 11 million pound cost was met entirely by the Sikh community itself, with no public money. Building work finished in September 2009, and the gurdwara was formally opened on 25 October 2009. A week before the opening, a procession through the streets of Leamington brought up to 7,000 worshippers onto the streets to mark the new temple, a crowd the size of the whole local Sikh community it was built to serve.

The opening was a civic event as much as a religious one. The following month the gurdwara welcomed 200 guests to a civic reception: the High Sheriff of Warwickshire, the Lord Mayor of Coventry, mayors from around the county, town, district and county council officials, Warwickshire's chief fire officer and representatives of businesses and community groups, who were shown around and given presentations on Sikhism and the building project. The gurdwara's communications officer Rajvinder Mann said the reaction mirrored that of the general public: extremely positive.

Architecture: a four storey Warwickshire landmark

The building rises four storeys and occupies 44,000 square feet, about 4,100 square metres, on Tachbrook Park Drive, on the edge of Leamington Spa in the town of Warwick's orbit; its postal address is Leamington Spa and its congregation spans both towns. Inside are three large prayer halls, a multi-purpose assembly room, a communal kitchen serving the langar, and a number of offices and classrooms. The front, familiar across Warwickshire, is symmetrical: a tall central block crowned by a white ribbed dome, flanked by two octagonal towers with smaller domes, arched windows, and the Nishan Sahib, the tall saffron flagpole that marks every gurdwara, standing in the grounds. It is traditional Sikh forms carried out at the scale of a modern civic building.

Worship, learning and community life

Alongside the prayer halls, the gurdwara provides a wedding hall for Anand Karaj ceremonies, modern classrooms, a comprehensive library and a community centre. Its official site streams live Gurbani and kirtan from the gurdwara, carries the daily Hukamnama, the verse taken from Darbar Sahib in Amritsar as the day's guidance, and offers a line by line English translation of the Guru Granth Sahib Ji to download. It also runs a mental health and wellbeing service, with self help guides prepared with industry professionals, addressing directly what its own pages call a taboo that stops people in the community seeking the support they need. Weekly educational activities and regular kirtan programmes fill the calendar between the great Gurpurabs.

A temple in the national conversation

Few local gurdwaras have been visited at the highest level so soon after opening. In February 2015 the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, visited the gurdwara during the run up to that year's general election, and two months later it was visited by Ed Miliband, the then leader of the opposition: a measure of how completely this Warwickshire congregation, which raised 11 million pounds from its own giving, had become part of the county's public life. The building remains what its builders intended, the centre of Sikh life for Leamington, Warwick and Kenilworth, and one of the most significant buildings associated with Sikhism in the United Kingdom.

How do you reach the Leamington gurdwara?

The gurdwara stands on Tachbrook Park Drive, Leamington Spa CV34 6RH, south of the town centre, and is reached by road from Leamington, Warwick and Kenilworth; most visitors drive. Everyone is welcome. As at any gurdwara, cover your head, remove your shoes before entering the prayer halls, sit quietly for the kirtan, and join the langar afterwards if you wish. Visitors who cannot come in person can still listen: the gurdwara streams its Gurbani and kirtan live through its official site.