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The Shri Swaminarayan Mandir
Temple is Europes's first traditional Hindu temple.
The great marble building was
constructed in Neasden in 1995 by a Hindu sect to replicate
the Akshardam outside Ahmedabad in Gujarat, western Indian.
Around 1,500 sculptors were employed
to fashion the 5,000 tons of limestone and marble. Such
work was unprecedented in Britain since the great cathedral-building
era of the Middle Ages.
Today the temple's beautiful
pinnacles and domes rise into a west London landscape previously
dominated by post-war towers and housing estates.
Popular with Hindus, Sikhs and
Moslems, the temple welcomes discreetly dressed visitors.
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