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Lenton Sikh Temple walk |
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Lenton Sikh Temple walk |
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Lenton in inner-city Nottingham has had its own Sikh temple, the Guru Teg Bahadur Gurdwara, since 1977 when it moved into a listed old Victorian school building dating from 1841. Last year the Gurdwara began exploring the possibility of obtaining Heritage Lottery Funding so that the building could be restored and adapted at an estimated cost of £1 million. If the bid is successful, the building will include a Lenton Heritage Centre complete with state of the art archival facilities for all the records of Lenton Local History Society and, perhaps, the records of Lenton’s oldest existing primary school, which dates from the 19th century and is due to close in 2008. The Gurdwara took part in this year’s Heritage Open Days weekend on 8–9 September for the first time and attracted visitors from as far away as Derby. As part of its programme of activities over the weekend, it asked me if I would lead a local heritage walk around the area. This prompted me to attend a volunteer walk leader training day organised by Get Moving Nottingham, which is part of the local NHS, so that my walk could be accredited and included in their 2008 walks programme. The next step was to devise the walk and to produce a leaflet to hand to participants which could also be downloaded from the web, so that anyone could follow the walk in full, or in part, in their own time and at their own pace. The walk is called the Guru Teg Bahadur Gurdwara Healthy Heritage Walk Exploring Lenton. Quite a mouthful, but the idea came from the Gurdwara and I wanted to acknowledge this. The walk is just under two miles long and takes just over an hour to complete and includes 43 ‘points of interest’. Next year’s version of the map will include a second walk and take the points of interest up to around 60. In the meantime, if you come to Nottingham or close by then you might like to explore Lenton for yourself and gain some healthy exercise as well. It may be something you can do in your own community as a way of bringing disparate groups and interests together under the banner of local history. To download a copy of Exploring Lenton visit www.local-history.co.uk/dlmap. Robert Howard |
14 Sept 2007 What have some of the Exploring Lenton walkers seen which has caught their attention?
They are looking at ornamentation associated with flying on the Albert Ball VC Homes behind Lenton War Memorial in inner-city Nottingham. |
