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Temple Church is a royal peculiar rather than a
parish church, like Westminster Abbey. It is set among
the Inns of Court off of Fleet Street, and is jointly
owned by the Inner Temple and Middle Temple. It is best
known for being one of England's few surviving round
churches, built in that style by the Knights Templar.
More significantly, the 12th Century interior shows some
of the very earliest evidence in England of the
transition from Romanesque to Gothic architecture. The
huge chancel, by far the biggest in the city, was added
fifty years later and is fully in the Early English
style.
The church escaped the Great Fire (just) but was still
refitted by Sir Christopher Wren with furnishings
considered more suitable for protestant worship. The
church is famous for its 13th Century effigies of knights
and replicas of those of kings. In fact, everything you
see is completely restored, as is the church around it -
the building was gutted during the Blitz of 11th May
1941, and the late 1950s restoration required the
complete refacing of the building both inside and out.
Happily, many of Wren's furnishings, including the
spectacular reredos commissioned from William
Rounthwaite, had been removed to storage by the
Victorians, and were put back in the church. The effigies
were severely damaged that night, but they had in any
case been heavily restored on several occasions in the
19th Century. For me, they were not the most interesting
thing about the interior, for that was the terrific
scheme of stained glass at the east end by Carl Edwards
of 1957-58.
Temple Church is one of two city churches you have to pay
to get into, the other being St Bartholomew the Great.
Temple church is by no means as spectacular as St Barts,
but it is still worth a visit even if you weren't being
trainspotterish and completist like me. Unlike St Barts,
opening days are not regular or predictable, but are
shown for the month ahead on the church website.Simon Knott, December 2015
location: Temple EC4Y 7BB - 1/063
status: working royal chapel
access: Five pounds entrance fee. Irregular
opening hours, usually open in the afternoon, some
mornings too, but check the website.
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