ਗੁਰਦੁਆਰਾ ਸ੍ਰੀ ਗੁਰੂ ਸਿੰਘ ਸਭਾ, ਸਾਊਥਾਲਗੁਰਦੁਆਰਾ ਸ੍ਰੀ ਗੁਰੂ ਸਿੰਘ ਸਭਾ, ਸਾਊਥਾਲ

Gurdwara Sri Guru Singh Sabha Southall is the largest Sikh temple in London, standing on Guru Nanak Road in Southall, west London, and it is the flagship of our guide to ਯੂਕੇ ਦੇ ਗੁਰਦੁਆਰੇ. Opened on 30 March 2003 and built for 17.5 million pounds raised entirely from the local Sikh community, its main hall seats 3,000 people and its langar kitchen can serve 20,000 meals a week.

How did Singh Sabha Southall begin?

It began in front rooms and hired halls. When the first Sikhs arrived in Southall in the 1940s and 1950s they used homes as gurdwaras, and the main congregational gathering for west London Sikhs was at Shepherd's Bush. To serve Southall itself, the Southall Sikh Cultural Society was established in 1960, and Sunday programmes were held first at Shackleton Hall and then at 11 Beaconsfield Road. Soon a second group formed: Sangat arriving from Malaysia and Singapore set up the Sri Guru Nanak Singh Sabha. The two bodies stayed independent until 1964, when they merged as Sri Guru Singh Sabha Southall and opened their first gurdwara at The Green, which also served as the Sabha's headquarters.

From a dairy to a London landmark

In 1967 a loan let the sangat buy a site on Havelock Road whose large building had originally been a dairy. Volunteers transformed the dairy into a gurdwara in a matter of weeks, and in April 1967 a Khanda was brought from the Tosha Khana at Darbar Sahib, Amritsar, for an Amrit Sanchar at which two hundred Sikhs took Amrit. From those humble beginnings, the Sabha says, Sri Guru Singh Sabha Southall emerged as the leading gurdwara outside India. The Park Avenue site, bought in 1984, became the congregation's home on 29 November 1997, a move made so the Havelock Road site could be cleared and rebuilt as the great temple the community had long planned.

The Havelock Road temple of 2003

Building work on the present temple began in March 2000. Designed by Architects Co-Partnership, it cost 17.5 million pounds, funded by donations from members of the local Sikh community, and it opened on Sunday 30 March 2003, inaugurated by the Prince of Wales, now King Charles III, who visited again in June 2003. The main darbar hall seats up to three thousand people, ringed by a gallery where worshippers can sit in quieter meditation, and a multi activity hall seats up to one thousand more for Gurpurabs, weddings and special functions. The Sabha's two Southall gurdwaras together receive over 15,000 worshippers and visitors every week.

Langar and seva at Southall

The langar hall serves free vegetarian food to everyone, seven days a week, and can provide as many as 20,000 meals a week, in the Sikh tradition that all are welcome and that race, faith and background do not matter. That spirit of seva, selfless service, has a long Southall record. In May 1981, when the People's March for Jobs reached London, the community fed the marchers at the Havelock Road temple and offered sleeping space to two hundred of them. The Sabha has also stood up for Sikh practice in Britain, campaigning from the 1970s onward on issues such as the right to wear the turban at work.

The gurdwara's school: Khalsa Primary

To advance the education of Sikh children, the gurdwara set up Khalsa Primary School, open to children of Sikh parents and of other faiths alike. The school is based at Norwood Hall on Tentelow Lane in Southall, a site bought for 2.8 million pounds from Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College. A gurdwara running a primary school shows how far the institution reaches beyond worship: for many Southall families the Sabha is school, kitchen, meeting place and voice, as well as temple.

Festivals and gatherings

The year's great gatherings are Vaisakhi, which marks the founding of the Khalsa in 1699, and the Gurpurabs, the birth and martyrdom anniversaries of the Gurus, when the darbar hall and the multi activity hall fill together and the langar runs at full stretch. Southall's Vaisakhi nagar kirtan, the hymn singing procession through the streets, is among the largest Sikh gatherings in Britain, drawing the sangat from across London and far beyond.

How do you visit Gurdwara Sri Guru Singh Sabha Southall?

You visit at Guru Nanak Road, Southall UB2 4NP, in the London Borough of Ealing; the Sabha's second gurdwara stands at 2 to 8 Park Avenue, Southall UB1 3AG. Everyone is welcome, Sikh or not, and there is nothing to book or pay. Cover your head, remove your shoes, sit on the floor of the darbar hall for as long as you wish, and stay for langar. The gurdwara's own site, sgsss.org, carries the daily programme of kirtan and services.