The story of Golborne Mosque
Golborne Mosque, also known as Alhuda Mosque (مسجد الهدى), has been part of Golborne Road for around forty years. Its story belongs to the Moroccan families who made this corner of North Kensington their home, and who worked, step by step, to give their community a place to pray.
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1864–1875
A new street
Golborne Road was laid out as North Kensington was built. Its roads and sewers were made in the winter of 1864–65, and by 1875 houses lined both sides. It grew into a busy street of shops. In 1970, a photograph of numbers 74–76 still shows a row of butchers, a dairy and grocers.
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1960s
From northern Morocco to North Kensington
The first Moroccans to settle in Britain arrived in the 1960s, most from the Jbala region of northern Morocco: Larache, Tetouan, Tangier and the villages around them. Many found work in London’s hotels and kitchens, and many made their homes in North Kensington. From the early 1970s, their families followed.
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Early 1970s
A community without a mosque
The community was still small, with no community centre and no mosque of its own. Newcomers met at Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square to share news from home, help one another write letters and welcome new arrivals.
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1981
Three founders
The Everyday Muslim heritage project records that the mosque was founded in 1981 by three Moroccans, and that most of its worshippers are of Moroccan origin. Where that first congregation prayed is not recorded. If you remember, please tell us.
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1985–1987
Looking for a home
In May 1985 an application was made to turn 76 Golborne Road, then a shop with a maisonette above, into a mosque. The council refused it twice, and in January 1987 an appeal was dismissed.
In the meantime, on 3 July 1986, the Golborne Mosque Trust was registered as a charity, with the aims of relieving poverty and advancing education and religion among Muslims. The community was organising in other ways too: in 1985 Souad Talsi founded the Al-Hasaniya Moroccan Women’s Centre, now at Trellick Tower on Golborne Road.
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1989
Permission at last
In February 1989 the council gave permission for a mosque in the basement of number 76, with a shop on the ground floor, a home above, a rear extension and a new shopfront. After four years of trying, the mosque had a home on Golborne Road.
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1990s
Putting down roots
In the early 1990s the mosque asked Muhammed Khaja, a well-known speaker at Speakers’ Corner, to serve as a community outreach officer, reaching out to Muslims of Asian and Arab heritage. A new shopfront followed in 1994. In January 1995 the council confirmed the basement’s use as a mosque, with prayers allowed until 1:30am in Ramadan.
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2000s
Little Morocco
By now Golborne Road was known as “Little Morocco”, lined with Moroccan cafés, butchers, grocers and fishmongers. In 2000 Al-Manaar, the Muslim Cultural Heritage Centre, opened on nearby Acklam Road.
A 2009 government study of Britain’s Moroccan community named the Golborne Road mosque as one of the two mosques its members used most. It was especially popular with the first generation, and with older worshippers who gathered to recite the hizb, a Sufi tradition of prayer.
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June 2017
Grenfell
On 14 June 2017, during Ramadan, fire engulfed Grenfell Tower, about a kilometre from the mosque. Seventy-two people died, among them members of North Kensington’s Moroccan community. Neighbours awake for suhoor were among the first to raise the alarm, and faith and community groups across the area, among them Al-Manaar, opened their doors to survivors. We remember all who were lost, and their families, in our prayers.
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Today
Still part of the street
The Golborne Mosque Trust and its trustees still look after the mosque. It holds the five daily prayers and Jumu‘ah throughout the year, congregational prayers and a free iftar every day of Ramadan, Eid gatherings, funeral prayers, and spiritual counselling. From the dawn prayer to the last prayer of the night, it remains part of the daily life of Golborne Road.