Column in front of Temple Church in London, March 2005

The Church was built by the Knights Templar, the order of crusading monks founded to protect pilgrims on their way to and from Jerusalem in the 12th century. The Church is in two parts: the Round and the Chancel.

The Round Church was consecrated in 1185 by the patriarch of Jerusalem. It was designed to recall the holiest place in the Crusaders' world: the circular Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. It is a numinous space - and has a wonderful acoustic for singing.

In the Round Church you will find the life-size stone effigies of nine knights. Most famous of these knights was William the Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, the most important mediator between King John and the Barons in 1215. John was at the Temple in January 1215 when the barons demanded that he confirm the rights enshrined in the Coronation Charter of his predecessor; it was William who swore on the King's behalf that the barons' grievances would be satisfied in the summer. William became Regent in the minority of Henry III.

William's own eldest son, also William, was among those chosen by the barons to force John's compliance with Magna Carta; and on John's death he joined the rebels against Henry's rule. His father eventually won him over to Henry's cause. The effigy of this younger William lies next to his father's.

The Chancel was built in 1240. Henry III had signalled his intention to be buried here. (He was in fact buried in Westminster Abbey; one of his sons, who died in infancy, was interred in the Temple.) If you look at the dark marble columns in the chancel, you will see that they 'lean' outwards. These columns are replicas of the 13th century columns that stood until the War; they leant outwards too. The church was bombed in 1941: the Chancel's vault survived; the columns cracked in the heat, and after the War they had to be replaced. The architects wondered whether to build the new columns upright. But if the 'leaning' columns had done good work for seven hundred years, their replacements, it was decided, should lean too - and so they do!

Text from TempleChurch.com: www.templechurch.com/pages/history.htm