Sunderland Sikh Association Gurdwara, Sunderlandਸੰਡਰਲੈਂਡ ਸਿੱਖ ਐਸੋਸੀਏਸ਼ਨ ਗੁਰਦੁਆਰਾ, ਸੰਡਰਲੈਂਡ

The Sunderland Sikh Association Gurdwara, known to its congregation as Guru Gobind Singh Gurdwara, stands at The Cloisters on Ryhope Road in Ashbrooke, Sunderland, in the North East of England. It is one of the most unusual gurdwaras in Britain: a Sikh congregation that bought a derelict Victorian parish church for one pound, restored its stained glass and its spire, and made it a working centre of worship, charity and school visits for the whole city. It is an entry in our guide to Gurdwaras in the UK.

What is the Sunderland Sikh Association Gurdwara?

It is a gurdwara, the Sikh place of worship, whose name means the doorway to the Guru. It is run by the Sunderland Sikh Association, a registered charity whose objects are to advance the Sikh religion, keep a library and reading room, and run a community centre for the people of Sunderland and Tyne and Wear. The prayer hall centres on the Guru Granth Sahib Ji, the Sikh scripture honoured as the eternal Guru, and the temple is named for Guru Gobind Singh Ji, the tenth Guru, who founded the Khalsa in 1699. Unusually, the diwan, the congregation's worship, is held in a hall beside the former church, while the great church building itself, its vestry and its grounds form the heart of the site.

History: Sikhs in Sunderland and a church for one pound

Sikhs have lived in Sunderland and the surrounding area since the 1970s, many of them shopkeepers, business people and workers who settled in the former shipbuilding city on the River Wear. For years the community had no temple of its own in the city. The building that changed that was Christ Church, Ashbrooke, a parish church declared redundant on 11 February 1998 after lying empty for about four years. The Sunderland Sikh Association, registered as a charity on 14 March 2001, bought the derelict church in September 2001 for one pound in liability costs. The whole North East Sikh community then donated over a quarter of a million pounds to carry out the first repairs, and the Grade II listed building became part of a living religious community again.

Architecture: a Victorian church by James Murray

Christ Church was built between 1862 and 1864 to a design by James Murray of Coventry, with a vestry and verger's house added around 1877 by J. C. Cundall of Leamington. Historic England lists it at Grade II: a church of snecked, rock faced limestone with a pale grey slate roof and a tall stone spire, built in the style of around 1300, with cusped lancets, roundels and geometric tracery. Inside there is a five bay arcade, a carved stone reredos and high quality glass, including the east window of 1864 by Morris and Co., its scenes designed by William Morris and Edward Burne Jones. The churchyard walls, railings and gates are listed separately, and a Grade II listed memorial to the dead of the Great War stands in the garden south of the church, a memorial the association restored in 2017. The site sits inside the Ashbrooke Conservation Area.

Restoration: the saints brought back to Sunderland

When the church was sold in 1999 its stained glass windows were removed and stored in a London warehouse. The association spent more than a year restoring the building, and a window of three panes showing St Michael, St George and St David was traced, brought back and refitted in its original place, eight years after it was taken out. Manjit Singh Cheema of the association said the community wanted to return the church to its original state, and that the window was there for people of all faiths to enjoy. Canon Stephen Taylor, who helped identify the saints, thanked the Sikh community for bringing the window back to the city. Restoration never really stopped: a later plan costed at 200,000 pounds repaired the 40 metre spire, with English Heritage paying half, and in 2013 the Heritage Lottery Fund awarded 71,000 pounds for urgent repairs to the tracery windows, stone mullions, stained glass and roof.

Community life, langar and outreach

More than 500 people were turning up for services in the years after the restoration, and the former church hall became a community centre while a hall in the church grounds served as the langar, the free vegetarian kitchen open to everyone. The association's charity raises its money almost entirely from its own members, around 1,000 families, and its work reaches well beyond worship: before the pandemic its school programme had completed more than 220 events with 86 schools, many of them travelling in from outside Sunderland, and its members have taught local police officers about the Sikh faith, restored the war memorial and run the site as a day centre where older people receive free meals. The charity's stated aims, set down in its constitution of 1996, pair worship with education and social welfare for the whole city, Sikh and non Sikh alike.

A new gurdwara beside the old church

For decades the diwan has been held in a former Nissen hut behind the church, a 320 square metre hall installed after the Second World War, with the langar hall, 73 square metres, in a former church hall. Sunderland City Council has granted planning permission to demolish the hut and build a purpose built, two storey gurdwara of about 892 square metres in its place, with a diwan hall of 259 square metres and a langar hall of 236 square metres, golden domes and a Nishan Sahib flagpole, while the listed church, vestry and walls are retained and reused. In November 2025 archaeologists from Pre-Construct Archaeology completed a historic building recording of the site as a condition of that permission, so the old hut and the church link building are on record before the new temple rises.

How do you visit the Sunderland gurdwara?

You visit at The Cloisters, Ryhope Road, Ashbrooke, Sunderland SR2 7BD, a short walk south of the city centre. Everyone is welcome, Sikh or not. Cover your head, wash your hands and remove your shoes before entering the prayer hall, and do not bring alcohol or tobacco onto the grounds. Sit on the floor for the diwan, and stay afterwards for langar. School and community groups are a regular part of life here, and the restored stained glass, including the returned window of the three saints, is worth asking to see: few buildings in Britain tell the story of two faiths sharing one roof as honestly as this one.