ABSTRACT
The recent focus on multiculturalism in the West must not blind us to the longer history of multicultural state policies bound up with the development of the nation-state and national ideologies during the nineteenth century across Europe. The Reformation plays a crucial role here since Christian pilgrimages survived in Catholic-majority countries and went through various revivals, while pilgrimage cults disappeared in Protestant areas of Western Europe revivals. To put these general developments into context the author will focus on what is now one of Western Europe's most culturally diverse countries Britain. By the Reformation the abbey had become one of the most powerful in Britain but it suffered a cataclysmic decline and very little was left of the extensive buildings when the local Anglican diocese bought the site and began its restoration. The controversial presence of Hindu shrines in British localities and their engagement with local and global constituencies was also demonstrated in another controversy involving another Hindu shrine.
