The First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has announced a Saturday, March 22, groundbreaking date for the Birmingham England Temple, the first groundbreaking for a house of the Lord in Europe in nearly a decade.
The Birmingham temple is one of 11 new houses of the Lord in Europe that have been announced since the January 2018 start of President Russell M. Nelson’s tenure as President of the Church. All 11 are in various stages of planning and design.
Elder Scott D. Whiting, a General Authority Seventy and the Europe North Area president, will preside at the groundbreaking ceremony for Great Britain’s third temple.
Projected as a single-story edifice of approximately 10,800 square feet, the Birmingham England Temple will be built on a 2.7-acre site at 185-187 Penns Lane, Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham, England, with patron housing and arrival facilities also planned at the Church-owned location about 6 miles north of Birmingham’s city center. Previously, a meetinghouse sat at 185 Penns Lane, with the England Birmingham Mission office at 187 Penns Lane.
The groundbreaking date was first published on Tuesday, Jan. 21, on ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
On April 2, 2022, President Nelson announced 17 new temple locations, including “Birmingham, United Kingdom,” during the closing session of April 2022 general conference.

Four months later, the First Presidency announced that the house of the Lord there would be named the Birmingham England Temple, lining it up with the Church’s two dedicated and operating temples in Great Britain: the London England Temple (dedicated in 1958) and the Preston England Temple (1998).
A fourth house of the Lord in the United Kingdom — for Edinburgh, Scotland — was announced in April 2024 and is in planning and design.
The Birmingham temple will be the first house of the Lord to start construction in Europe since three temples began construction and were dedicated in the 2010s — the Rome Italy Temple had its groundbreaking in October 2010 and its dedication in March 2019, the Paris France Temple began construction in August 2012 and was dedicated in May 2017, and groundbreaking and dedication of the Lisbon Portugal Temple came in December 2015 and September 2019.
The Birmingham temple site was released Dec. 18, 2023, and the exterior rendering of the planned house of the Lord was published Feb. 26, 2024.
The Praia Cape Verde Temple — dedicated in June 2022 — and the island nation of Cabo Verde are assigned to the Church’s Europe North Area, but they are located off the coast of West Africa.
The 11 new houses of the Lord announced by President Nelson and their current status are:
- Barcelona Spain — in planning, with site released and rendering published.
- Birmingham England — groundbreaking date set.
- Brussels Belgium — in planning, with site released and rendering published.
- Budapest Hungary — in planning, with site released and rendering published.
- Dublin Ireland — in planning.
- Edinburgh Scotland — in planning.
- Hamburg Germany — in planning.
- Milan Italy — in planning.
- Oslo Norway — in planning, with site released and rendering published.
- Vienna Austria — in planning, with site released.
- Russia — in planning, announced for “a major city yet to be determined in Russia.”
Two latter-day apostles — Elders Heber C. Kimball and Orson Hyde — arrived in Liverpool, England, in 1837 and began preaching the restored gospel in Preston, England, about 95 miles (115 kilometers) northwest of Birmingham. During the 1800s, nearly 100,000 converts emigrated from present-day United Kingdom to the United States to join the Church’s main body of membership; by 1870, nearly half of the population in present-day Utah consisted of British immigrants.
Today, the United Kingdom is home to nearly 190,00 Latter-day Saints comprising more than 300 congregations.