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07
Mar
After years of fundraising and renovation, Harrogate's mosque finally opens for prayer
Harrogate’s new mosque has been signed off for public use and has been holding evening prayers throughout this week, it has been revealed.
The town centre mosque, in the former Home Guard Club on the corner of Belford Road and Tower Street, has been in the pipeline for many years.
Harrogate Islamic Association bought the derelict building following a huge fundraising effort in 2022. Work to restore it has progressed slowly ever since, its pace dictated by the funding, which the association has insisted on raising from the local community, rather than from wealthy international foundations.
The main entrance will be on Tower Street (left).
The Stray Ferret was invited yesterday to take a look around the site, which is nearing completion.
On a tour of the building, the association’s Zahed Amanullah said:
The big challenge has been funding. The building cost half a million, and then everything on top of that has probably cost another half a million.
The building was collapsing when we bought it. We had to gut the whole thing and replace the roof. When we took out a staircase, the walls on either side collapsed.
The mosque has been used every day this week for prayers.
Babar Khan, chairman of the mosque board, said:
There was more water inside the building than there was outside before we replaced the roof.
We had to strip it out and go right back to just the four walls. Then we had to put a whole steel frame in to support the building, so we could take out the internal walls.
It’s so strong now, you could probably build another 20 or 30 storeys on top of this steelwork.
The tiles in the washrooms were donated by a Harrogate restaurant.
Most of the interior has now been fitted out. On the ground floor, there’s a kitchen, washrooms and a multipurpose space.
Upstairs, there is the main prayer hall, and above that, another multipurpose space and a small office.
The main hall can accommodate about 120 people, and Mr Khan the whole building can take about 250 people.
There have been donations from the public too: tiles for the washrooms and carpets for other areas.
There’s also a comprehensive security system, thanks to a Home Office grant, with an alarm system, security lighting, CCTV and panic buttons.
The main prayer hall can accommodate up to 120 people.
But despite all the progress, funds are still being raised, as there is still an expensive shopping list to tick off: £50,000 to make the mezzanine usable; £30,000 for the lift to make the building fully wheelchair-accessible; £20,000 to re-render the exterior walls and reinstate original features; £10,000 for bike racks and railings outside the main Tower Street entrance.
Ultimately, they also want to have a Harrogate Civic Society plaque outside to give recognition to the history of the building. That will cost another £1,000.
The exterior will be re-rendered.
Mr Khan said:
For me, the building of the project is just the first phase. The most important phase is the running of the mosque, and bringing together the community.
We’ll finally have somewhere to come together – the first mosque in Harrogate. I could get emotional about that, and in fact some of the older people who have lived in Harrogate for 20 or 30 years have been very emotional about it. They never thought they’d see this happen.
Once the building is completed and fully fitted out, the mosque board hopes to be able to open the building up to host talks and public events, and possible even serve as a polling station. In the shorter term, they hope to hold an opening event for the wider public, possibly in April or May.
The multifunctional space on the ground floor.
Mr Amanullah said:
This is a community mosque – it’s open to all faiths, and we hope they’ll come and take a look. We just want to be inclusive.
A building like this makes people feel they belong here. This is what integration looks like: becoming part of the fabric of the town.
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