01From a borrowed hall
In the 1970s Telugu families in the Birmingham area met to worship Venkateswara in the Shree Geeta Bhawan, a Gujarati-run temple in Handsworth. In 1987 the Black Country Development Corporation gave them land at Tividale, on old industrial ground, and after years of fundraising building began in 1997, paid for by some £6.5 million from devotees and a grant from the Millennium Commission. The plan was modelled on Tirumala, with a stairway climbing to the main gopuram flanked by shrines of Ganesh and Murugan.
02South India in the Black Country
Besides Balaji the temple honours Lakshmi, Shiva, Hanuman and the Navagrahas, and employs both Vaishnava and Shaiva priests, so Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayali families all keep their festivals here, along with Diwali and the new years of the south. The grounds also hold the Gandhi Peace Centre, with a library, yoga rooms and a permanent exhibition on Mahatma Gandhi’s life. The temple opened in 2000, and its formal consecration, the Mahakumbhabhishekam, was held in 2006.
The life of this place
- 1987The site at Tividale is given for the temple.
- 1997Construction begins.
- 2000The temple opens.
- 2006The temple is consecrated.
Dudley Road East, Tividale, Oldbury, near junction 2 of the M5. Open daily.
