Guru Nanak Gurdwara Smethwick

The Guru Nanak Gurdwara stands at 130 High Street, Smethwick, in Sandwell near Birmingham. It occupies a former Congregational chapel that the Sikh community bought for 11,600 pounds and that has since been rebuilt and extended. It began in a converted building, not a purpose-built gurdwara.

When it began: accounts differ. SikhNet's 2012 report says the community bought the building in 1961. Wikipedia says the gurdwara was established in October 1958, in a church bought earlier that year for 11,600 pounds, and lists 1961 as the year of consecration, citing Gurharpal Singh and Darshan Singh Tatla's Sikhs in Britain and a BBC interview. We could not open either of those two sources. We could not settle the year.

Key dates

• 1958 or 1961: the former Congregational chapel is bought and converted.
• 24 October 2012: a new community annexe is unveiled on the site of the former Princess Cinema. SikhNet gives its cost as 5 million pounds and its size as 40,000 square feet. It took ten years including planning and fundraising, and about 18 months to build.

The annexe: it holds a kitchen, a dining hall, a banqueting hall, classrooms, a library, a lecture theatre and a cafe.

Later work: a local-history site says the gurdwara commissioned the "Lions of the Great War" memorial to soldiers from the Indian subcontinent who fought in the First World War.

We could not open an outside source for the gurdwara's weekly attendance, for the Smethwick Sikh population or for its link to the 1964 election, so those are left out.