Wat Buddhapadipa in London was the first Buddhist temple to be built in the United Kingdom.
It was established by the London Buddhist Temple Foundation with the objective of creating a centre for the dissemination of theoretical and practical Buddhist teachings in Europe.
"Wat" is the Thai word for temple or monastery and is used as a prefix to denote the name of a temple.
Buddhapadipa is a compound word in Pali, the Buddhist canonical language, meaning ‘lamp or light of the Buddha’.