On London Extra: Indian Neasden

It all began in Islington. Plus Labour and the capital, Met "insider threats", Big Media catches up on housing thresholds, air knitting in Poplar and much more

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The roots of Neasden Temple lie in the city of Ahmedabad in Gujurat, but also in industrial Islington. Elmore Street, N1, was noted for its piano factory, but it also had an abandoned Christian building which, in June 1970, became London’s first Hindu place of worship.

Business was brisk, and in 1982 the temple relocated to Metro-land and what John Betjeman had called “the home of the gnome and the average citizen”.

However, Neasden had already given the world Twiggy, so it wasn’t all garden ornaments and dull commutes. And by 1995, the creation of today’s BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, to give it its formal name, was complete - an astounding architectural and spiritual spectacle built from Bulgarian limestone, Italian marble, Burmese teak and English oak.