Templar church outline in Temple Church, Bristol

Temple Church, also known as Holy Cross Church, () is a ruined church in Redcliffe, Bristol, England. It is on the site of a previous, round church of the

Knights Templar , colors = White mantle with a red cross , colors_label = Attire , march = , mascot = Two knights riding a single horse , equipment ...

, which they built on land granted to them in the second quarter of the 12th century by Robert of Gloucester. In 1313 the

Knights Hospitaller The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem ( la, Ordo Fratrum Hospitalis Sancti Ioannis Hierosolymitani), commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller (), was a medieval and early modern Catholic Church, Catholic Military ord ...

acquired the church, following the suppression of the Templars, only to lose it in 1540 at the time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries. By the early 14th century, the church served as the parish church for the area known as Temple Fee. From around the same time, the rebuilding of the church on a rectangular plan started. This was completed by 1460, with the construction of a leaning west tower. The church was the scene of the

exorcism Exorcism () is the religious or spiritual practice of evicting demons, jinns, or other malevolent spiritual entities from a person, or an area, that is believed to be possessed. Depending on the spiritual beliefs of the exorcist, this may be ...

George Lukins George Lukins, also known as the Yatton daemoniac, was a tailor infamous for his alleged demonic possession and the subsequent exorcism that occurred in 1788 when he was aged 44; his case occasioned great controversy in England. Biography The R ...

conducted by

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's b ...

and

Anglican Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...

clergy in 1788. The church was bombed and largely destroyed in the

Bristol Blitz The Bristol Blitz was the heavy bombing of Bristol, England by the Nazi German ''Luftwaffe'' during the Second World War. Due to the presence of Bristol Harbour and the Bristol Aeroplane Company, the city was a target for bombing and was easi ...

. It is a Grade II*

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

, owned by the

Diocese of Bristol The Diocese of Bristol is an ecclesiastical jurisdiction or diocese of the Church of England in the Province of Canterbury, England. It is based in the city of Bristol and covers South Gloucestershire and parts of north Wiltshire, as far east ...

. In 1958,

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. The charity states that i ...

agreed to undertake a guardianship role. A 1960 excavation by the Ministry of Works discovered the plan of the 12th-century church, enabling it to be marked out on the ground in stone.

Early history

The 12th-century church was a Templar

preceptory A preceptor (from Latin, "''praecepto''") is a teacher responsible for upholding a ''precept'', meaning a certain law or tradition. Buddhist monastic orders Senior Buddhist monks can become the preceptors for newly ordained monks. In the Buddhi ...

, built on land granted to the Templars by Robert, Earl of Gloucester, sometime in the two decades before his death in 1147. The Knights Hospitaller acquired the church in 1313, following the suppression of the Templars. The Hospitallers lost their English properties to the Crown in 1540, and in 1544 the church was acquired by Bristol Corporation. The parish of Temple Fee had come into being by 1308, the first year in which the church was recorded as having a vicar. Temple Fee and Redcliffe Fee were distinct parishes, physically separated by a "Law Ditch". Both were absorbed into Bristol by the city charter of 1373, ending a dispute between Bristol and Somerset over jurisdiction. Temple parish merged into

St Mary Redcliffe St Mary Redcliffe is an Anglican parish church located in the Redcliffe district of Bristol, England. The church is a short walk from Bristol Temple Meads station. The church building was constructed from the 12th to the 15th centuries, and it ...

parish in 1956.

World War II bombing

The church was bombed on 24/25 November 1940 in the Bristol Blitz, leaving it an empty shell. The damage was severe and although the arcades still stood they were very unsafe and have since been removed. The wrought-iron

parclose A parclose screen is a screen or railing used to enclose or separate-off a chantry chapel, tomb or manorial chapel, from public areas of a church, for example from the nave or chancel. It should be distinguished from the chancel screen which sep ...

screens to the side chapels did survive and are today in the

Lord Mayor's Chapel St Mark's Church is an ancient church on the north-east side of College Green, Bristol, College Green, Bristol, England, built c. 1230. Better known to mediaeval and Tudor historians as the Gaunt's Chapel, it has also been known within Bri ...

. The sword rest by William Edney is now preserved but broken up into sections and re-erected in other churches. The 15th century candelabrum, with its central statue of the

Virgin Mary Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother o ...

also survived, albeit a little dented, and now hangs in the Berkeley Chapel of

Bristol Cathedral Bristol Cathedral, the Cathedral Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, is the Church of England cathedral in the city of Bristol, England. Founded in 1140 and consecrated in 1148, it was originally St Augustine's Abbey but after the Dissolu ...

. Temple Church also contained a peal of 8 bells, which were moved to the Cathedral's north-west tower after the bombing. The bombing destroyed the stores of records kept in the cellars.

Listed status

It was the first English parish church to be taken into ownership by the then Ministry of Works, and is today in the care of English Heritage. It is a

Grade II* listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

. The archway and gates, which date from the mid 19th century and made from

Portland stone Portland stone is a limestone from the Tithonian stage of the Jurassic period quarried on the Isle of Portland, Dorset. The quarries are cut in beds of white-grey limestone separated by chert beds. It has been used extensively as a building sto ...

and

wrought iron Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.08%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4%). It is a semi-fused mass of iron with fibrous slag Inclusion (mineral), inclusions (up to 2% by weight), which give it a ...

in a

Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

style, are themselves Grade II listed. The church is a

scheduled monument In the United Kingdom, a scheduled monument is a nationally important archaeological site or historic building, given protection against unauthorised change. The various pieces of legislation that legally protect heritage assets from damage and d ...

Architecture

Temple Church, Bristol, BRO Picbox-4-BCh-38, 1250x1250

The 12th-century church had a round

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

, with an

aisle An aisle is, in general, a space for walking with rows of non-walking spaces on both sides. Aisles with seating on both sides can be seen in airplanes, certain types of buildings, such as churches, cathedrals, synagogues, meeting halls, parl ...

arcade, and a

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ove ...

with a semicircular

apse In architecture, an apse (plural apses; from Latin 'arch, vault' from Ancient Greek 'arch'; sometimes written apsis, plural apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome, also known as an ''exedra''. In ...

. This chancel was replaced with a rectangular one, with a chapel added to its north side in

Decorated style English Gothic is an architectural style that flourished from the late 12th until the mid-17th century. The style was most prominently used in the construction of cathedrals and churches. Gothic architecture's defining features are pointed a ...

, in the late 13th or early 14th century. A second chapel was built later in the 14th century, on the south side, to which

Perpendicular In elementary geometry, two geometric objects are perpendicular if they intersect at a right angle (90 degrees or π/2 radians). The condition of perpendicularity may be represented graphically using the ''perpendicular symbol'', ⟂. It can ...

windows were added in the 15th century. These chapels have been identified respectively as St Katherine's Chapel, granted to the Bristol company of weavers by

Edward I Edward I (17/18 June 1239 – 7 July 1307), also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1272 to 1307. Concurrently, he ruled the duchies of Aquitaine and Gascony as a vassal o ...

in 1299, and a chantry licensed to John Frauceys the younger by

Edward III Edward III (13 November 1312 – 21 June 1377), also known as Edward of Windsor before his accession, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from January 1327 until his death in 1377. He is noted for his military success and for restoring r ...

in 1331. Cloth weaving was the staple industry of Bristol in the late Middle Ages, and its centre was in Temple parish. The round nave was replaced with a rectangular, aisled nave, in early Perpendicular style, completed around the last decade of the 14th century. The nave arcade was extended into the choir of the chancel. A free-standing

bell tower A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell tower ...

seems to have existed until the early 15th century, further to the west. The present, leaning west tower was built in stages, and completed between 1441 and 1460. The highest stage is at a different angle to the vertical to the lower stages, as the masons attempted to correct for the subsidence of the lower stages. The top of the tower leans from the vertical. It is high. The lean is popularly attributed to the foundations of the tower being built on top of wool-sacks but is most likely due to the soft

alluvial Alluvium (from Latin ''alluvius'', from ''alluere'' 'to wash against') is loose clay, silt, sand, or gravel that has been deposited by running water in a stream bed, on a floodplain, in an alluvial fan or beach, or in similar settings. Alluv ...

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4). Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay par ...

underneath being compressed.

2015 performance event

From 29 October to 21 November 2015, the church hosted ''Sanctum'', a performance event created by the American

installation artist Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called ...

Theaster Gates Theaster Gates (born August 28, 1973) is an American social practice installation artist and a professor in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Chicago. He was born in Chicago, Illinois, where he still lives and works. Gates' wo ...

together with the art group Situations, as part of Bristol 2015

European Green Capital European, or Europeans, or Europeneans, may refer to: In general * ''European'', an adjective referring to something of, from, or related to Europe ** Ethnic groups in Europe ** Demographics of Europe ** European cuisine, the cuisines of Europe ...

. A temporary, steepled auditorium was built inside the church, using salvaged historic materials from elsewhere in Bristol, designed to amplify the sounds of musical and other performances taking place 24 hours a day for 24 days.

References

External links

Temple Church information from English Heritage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bristol, Temple Church

Temple Church The Temple Church is a Royal peculiar church in the City of London located between Fleet Street and the River Thames, built by the Knights Templar as their English headquarters. It was consecrated on 10 February 1185 by Patriarch Heraclius of J ...

Ruins of churches destroyed during World War II

12th-century church buildings in England Inclined towers Churches completed in 1460 Towers completed in the 15th century Church ruins in England

Grade II* listed ruins