Visit to Taplow Court - SGI-UK Buddhist Society National Culture Centre

Crawley Interfaith Network

By Waleed Abdallah

Saturday 20th September 2008
Depart  Crawley 1000  (Transport provided, meeting point to be announced)
Arrive Taplow Court 1115
Tour of Main House and Institute of Oriental Philosophy Library  1130
Luncheon 1315
Tour of Grounds 1430
Leave for Crawley 1600
Expected Time Arrival Crawley 1715
The Institute of Oriental Philosophy (IOP) Librarian, Sarah Norman, has agreed to meet with us to discuss holdings of Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, Shinto, Confucian and other Asian religious texts.
Taplow Court house, the home of SGI-UK, is the restored former home of the Desborough family (Lord Grenfell, who was almost single-handedly responsible for the 1908 London Olympics). There has been a building on the site since Norman times and evidence of human habitation from the Bronze Age.
A vegetarian Lunch is courtesy of Crawley District Buddhists.
The grounds tour will include the Butsuma, Peace Garden and historic features such as Bapsey Pond (fed from what was considered a sacred spring used by St. Birinius for baptisms about 640 AD) and a large "hlow" or Saxon burial mound on the grounds which housed the remains of the Saxon king Tappa (hence 'Tappa's Hlow', Taplow).  (More at: www.sgi-uk.org/index.php/centres/Taplow_Court )
Please Contact Vikki Jacobs on 01293 438565 OR by email: vikki.jacbs@crawley.gov.uk no later than 30th August 2008