Buddhapadipa Temple

The lowdown

Turn off a leafy Wimbledon street and you find something genuinely unexpected, an ornate Thai Buddhist temple with a sweeping golden roof sitting in four acres of English garden. It was the first Thai temple built in Britain and it is completely free to visit.

The main hall, the bot, is the showpiece. Inside, every wall is covered in dazzling murals hand painted by Thai artists, traditional scenes from the life of the Buddha mixed playfully with modern faces. Shoes come off and the welcome is warm and unhurried.

Outside there is a lake, a small grove of trees, a flower garden and benches, so you can easily spend an hour wandering for nothing. It feels a very long way from southwest London.