The mosque at Woking is the first purpose-built mosque in England, constructed in 1889.
Described by Nikolaus Pevsner as ‘sincere and dignified’ – yet quite dancing with the architectural gaiety of the Indo-Islamic style – it is a very great surprise to come upon when run to ground in Woking! It quite knocks you for six.
Standing in Oriental Road, it was built by Dr Gottlieb Leitner, a distinguished orientalist and linguist from Hungary, and was partly funded by Begum Shah Jahan, the female ruler of what was to become, in our time, the benighted Indian state of
