Balaji Temple Tividale: a little Tirumala near Birmingham, now with a chariot house and a new Annadhanam hall

For Telugu families in England who long for a darshan of Lord Venkateswara, the Balaji Temple at Tividale is a little Tirumala close to home. About seven miles from Birmingham city centre, beside Dudley Road East, its carved granite towers, bright yellow steps and white elephant statues greet devotees from a distance. Built in the style of the Tirumala temple, the Shri Venkateswara (Balaji) Temple had its Kumbhabhishekam in August 2006, and it has kept growing ever since, with new facilities added year after year.

Close to half a million devotees and visitors come each year, according to the trust that runs it, which describes the complex as Europe’s biggest temple of its type. Its accounts for the year to March 2025 list 36 staff, including ten priests and three madapalli cooks who prepare the prasadam, and 305 volunteers serve alongside them.

From monthly prayers to a Tirumala-style shrine

The temple is the fruit of four decades of devotion. In the late 1970s Hindu families around Birmingham gathered once a month to pray to Lord Venkateswara at the Shri Geeta Bhawan Mandir in Handsworth, where a deity was installed in 1980. A 15-member committee was elected in October 1984 to raise money for a temple of their own, and the charity was registered on 1 November that year.

In 1995 the trust bought the land at Tividale. Professor Adam Hardy, a researcher in Indian architecture, drew the design, with the sthapathi Dr Dakshinamoorthy in India advising on the traditional rules. The Millennium Commission agreed matching funds in 1996, the bhoomi puja followed in 1997, and stone carvers brought from India shaped the granite towers. The Ganesha shrine was consecrated first; Lord Venkateswara’s main shrine had its Kumbhabhishekam in August 2006.

Many shrines, one campus

Beside Lord Balaji and Goddess Padmavathi there are shrines for Ganesha, Murugan, Hanuman, Shiva, the Navagrahas, Ayyappa, Shirdi Sai Baba and Sri Vasavi Kanyaka Parameswari. The Shiva lingam, consecrated in 2010, came from the Ganga riverbed at Gangotri. A Yagasala for daily homams followed in 2014, and the Gandhi Peace Centre opened on 10 November 2018.

A road and a home for the ratham

The Rathotsavam, held on the August bank holiday weekend since 2016, is the temple’s biggest day, drawing 6,000 to 8,000 devotees. For the 9.3-metre chariot the trust built a procession road around the temple, and at the August 2021 festival the ratham was pulled along it for the first time. The same works added 120 parking spaces.

A glass-fronted chariot house followed, set on a granite plinth carved with elephants, so devotees can see the ratham all year round. Its columns were clad in floral-etched granite panels before the August 2023 festival, and that year a 13-foot granite Garuda by the Bengaluru sculptor Ganesh Bhat was installed at the entrance.

A new Annadhanam hall

A two-storey Annadhanam hall for prasadam and annadanam was inaugurated on 7 June 2025, a year after work began in April 2024. Under the banner “Annadhanam is Mahadhanam”, the temple asked devotees to give £1,001, or £101 a month for ten months, towards the hall, and every donor of £1,001 or more is to be named in a special Book of Donors kept in the hall. In July 2025 another two-storey building, for religious classes, meditation, mundan ceremonies, meetings and a waiting area for devotees, was approved. The temple’s history page lists more work planned before a Maha Kumbhabhishekam of Lord Venkateswara.

A temple close to Telugu hearts

Lord Balaji’s abhishekam is held every Saturday at 8am. The weekend school, Balaji Vidyalaya, teaches Telugu alongside Tamil, Hindi and Sanskrit, and the 2026 calendar carried Ugadi, Annamacharya Aradhana and a Brahmotsavam from 27 to 31 August, with the chariot festival on Sunday, 30 August. Deepawali will be celebrated on Sunday, 8 November, and Vaikunta Ekadasi falls on Sunday, 20 December, when the Vaikunta Dwara darshan begins at 1.30pm.

How devotees can support the temple

The temple is a registered charity (No. 326712) that runs on devotees’ gifts and service. These are the ways it lists for those who wish to support Lord Balaji’s temple.

• Annadhanam hall: £1,001 at once, or £101 a month for ten months; donors are named in the Book of Donors. Temple office: 0121 544 2256 (option 4)
• Online: through the temple website, venkateswara.org.uk
• Hundi: offerings can be placed in the hundi at the temple
• Ubhayakartha for abhishekams: devotees can join the weekly and monthly abhishekams, including Lord Balaji’s Saturday abhishekam at 8am, as ubhayakarthas, or ask for a personal abhishekam on a birthday or anniversary
• Poojas and homams: archana, Srinivasa Kalyanam, Satyanarayana Pooja, Sahasranama Archana and homams such as Ganapathy, Sudarshana and Navagraha are booked in advance; archana can also be done in a devotee’s absence
• Volunteering: 305 volunteers already serve, and new volunteers are given induction training
• Community hall: the temple’s hall can be booked for weddings and family occasions
• Contact: 0121 544 2256, temple@venkateswara.org.uk

At Lord Balaji’s shrine the Suprabhata seva is at 8.30am and the Ekantha seva at 8.15pm every day.

Planning a visit

The address is 101 Dudley Road East, Tividale, B69 3DU, but drivers are asked to enter B69 3EB in a sat-nav; parking for cars and coaches is free. The nearest rail station, Sandwell & Dudley, is 1.1 miles away, and the number 87 bus runs from Birmingham city centre.

On weekdays the temple is open from 9am to 1pm and from 5pm to 9pm; at weekends and on bank holidays from 9am to 2.30pm and from 4pm to 9pm. From November to March it closes at 8.30pm.