London City

by Walter Besant

By W. J. Loftie

The Temple is situated on the left bank of the Thames, partly within the City of London and partly within the ancient county of Middlesex. It consisted originally of the Inner, Middle, and Outer Temples, of which the first and second were in what was described in the thirteenth century as “the suburb of London,” and afterwards as the ward of Farringdon Without. This former suburb had many descriptions and designations, owing to its geographical situation between two tributary brooks or bournes and the tidal waters of the Thames. The brooks have now disappeared under ground, but the Fleet, along the City wall, and the Millbrook, where Mill Ford Lane is now, formed the east and west boundaries of a green slope between Fleet Street and the river. Strictly speaking, this whole region, as far as the wall, was in Westminster, but Henry III. and the citizens divided it between them when the London boundaries were pushed out to “The Bar of the New Temple,” and when Peter of Savoy built his palace on the open strand beyond it. After the Conquest the only access to the City was by a lane which followed a ridge of higher ground from the Roman landing-place at the Millbrook, and it entered the City walls at Newgate. When Ludgate, a postern, as its name denotes, was opened and a bridge crossed the Fleet, all was changed, and the easy way from Westminster by land no longer led up Show-well-lane (now Shoe Lane) to Newgate, but through Fleet Street to Ludgate. Then a church was built at St. Bride’s Well, the Whitefriars or Carmelites settled beside it in 1241, and the Templars, an order of military monks, bought the lands called after them the Inner and Middle Temples, with, outside the City bar, the fields known as the Coney Garth, Fickett’s Field, and the Outer Temple as tilting and exercising grounds. Fetter Lane recalls the existence of armourers who made fetters, that is, lance rests, for the knights, and the City still pays an annual rent to the Crown for the forge, where, no doubt, weapons were mended and war-horses shod. The Templars had lived at first at the Holborn end of Chancery Lane, where Southampton Buildings are now, and after they migrated here in 1184 their house was called the New Temple.

It was situated on the eastern part of the site, and the circular church was built in the year following, namely 1185, the choir being added in 1240. As long as the Templars remained here it seems probable that their buildings did not extend any farther west. The local names, such as Fountain Court, Garden Court, Elm Court, are all in the Middle Temple, and seem to contain reminiscences of the time when it was still part of the gardens. The names in the Inner Temple, Cloister Court, King’s Bench Walk, Crown Office Row, have an appearance of greater antiquity; but Fig Tree Court is in the same division, and Brick Court in the Middle Temple, so it will not do to press the argument very far.

In December 1307 the Temple was seized by the Sheriffs of London in obedience to a writ issued by King Edward II., and the order was soon after formally suppressed. The Templars had long been remarkable for their wealth and pride; their campaigns in the Holy Land were ineffective, chiefly on account of their quarrels with the Hospitallers, and in most European kingdoms they were suspected of sorcery, heresy, and other crimes. Their suppression was attended with greater cruelty abroad than in England, and though some thirty members of the order were sent to the Tower, most of them were subsequently released, and a pension was granted to some. The “New Temple” was given by the King as a residence to his cousin, Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke. He died in 1324, but had left the Temple long before, having in 1314 transferred it to Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, with the King’s consent. The grant includes Fickett’s Field, and as Lancaster’s wife was the heiress of Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, he came into possession, by a curious coincidence, of the future sites of Lincoln’s Inn, the two Temples, and the new Law Courts, as well as of the Savoy. Lancaster was beheaded at Pontefract in 1322, but was esteemed a saint and martyr by the people on account of his long opposition, first to Gaveston, and later to the Despencers, the unworthy favourites of Edward II. Meanwhile the Hospitallers or Knights of St. John at Clerkenwell obtained a papal decree that they were to succeed to the property of the Templars, and in 1324 they were allowed to take possession. The Pope made it a condition that the Temple was not to be put to profane uses, and the new owners in promptly letting it to the lawyers—who were in those days almost all in holy orders, clergy, that is, able to read and write—may have supposed they were fulfilling the papal injunction.

A survey was made about this time, and from it and other indications we may form some idea of what the house was like when the Templars lost it. The chapel of St. Mary stood where it still is, and beside it the smaller chapel of St. Anne. There were already two gates. The Master’s house was eastward of the church, but nearer than the present house, and formed, with the treasury and the hall, a quadrangle round the chapel. This treasury was occasionally used by King John and King Henry before the regalia was lodged in the Tower. John was here himself in 1212; Henry III. in 1232, when he seized the money of Hubert de Burgh, deposited in the treasury; and Edward I. in 1283. The library probably occupies the site. The treasurer’s house adjoined, as it does still; and there was a cloister, as there is still. Notwithstanding the number of years between the expulsion of the Templars and the organisation of the lawyers, the old names were preserved. The chaplain was the Master, the treasurer was the chief of the lawyers. It would seem as if the old titles of the officials were kept alive by the buildings.

We obtain a glimpse of the daily life of these new Templars from Chaucer. If he lived in the Savoy, as he seems to have done, before he went to Westminster, he had the lawyers close at hand, and in one of his Canterbury Tales he tell us that the Manciple belonged to the Temple, where he had thirty masters, for whom he was caterer. From which we may conclude that the number of lawyers had reached thirty in 1380, unless, indeed, there were several houses full. The servants of the Templars, the servientes or serjeants, survived the expulsion of their masters, and after they died out their place was taken by the common law practitioners, who formed themselves into a society or inn, which adjoined the Temple on the northeast as early as 1333; while in 1337 we begin to hear of two halls, and in the reign of Henry VI. the Templars consisted of two separate bodies, which professed absolute equality. The Inner, however, is very much richer than the Middle Temple and has more members. Every year the benchers of one dine with the benchers of the other; and when James I. granted the site without any rents or restrictions, such as had survived till then, his charter is addressed to the members of both societies.

Meanwhile, the Outer Temple had been leased to the Bishops of Exeter, and the land between Fickett’s Field and Lincoln’s Inn to the Bishop of Chichester. Another bishop had lodgings actually within the Temple. On the east side of Inner Temple Lane, north of the porch of the Round Church, was Ely House, with its chapel of St. Thomas of Canterbury.

The Great Fire of 1666 made the Temple its western terminus. The Master’s house was burned, but the chapel was spared, the flames ceasing within a very few feet of the chancel. Wren built the new gate facing Chancery Lane and the Master’s house, removing it to where it still stands. His style, if not his hand, may also be seen in other buildings, such as the doorways in King’s Bench Walk. The archway of the Inner Temple Gate dates from 1607, but the front of the house above it in Fleet Street has been refaced lately in a suitable style.

It may be well to note here that the other round churches in England were not built by the Templars; there are three—St. Sepulchre at Cambridge, St. Sepulchre at Northampton, and St. John of Jerusalem at Little Maplestead, in Essex. The last named was probably built by the Hospitallers. There is also a round chapel in Ludlow Castle.

The visitor will probably go first to the chapel. It is usual to mark its importance and size by calling it “the Temple Church.” It was built by the Templars, the round part, Norman in style, being consecrated in 1185 by Heraclius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, who happened to be in England on a begging tour. With its porch, it has been rebuilt, repaired, improved, and “restored,” until very little of the original masonry, if any, remains. The choir was added in 1240 and was a very pure and beautiful example of the “Early English” or first pointed style. It has been ever since very obnoxious to ignorant builders, and a mere list of the alterations would perhaps produce an impression that nothing is left worth seeing. This is not the case; but it is true that after an ornamental reparation in 1685, another after a fire ten years later, and again after forty years, it must have seemed very venerable and still in parts very picturesque even after a general repair in 1811. The monuments, some very magnificent, others historically interesting, were still undisturbed, and, from the recumbent effigies in the Norman round nave to the judges in their robes and collars in the chancel, formed an unequalled series of curious and sometimes fine works of art. The exquisite carving of the Corinthian reredos behind the communion table sufficed to bring the various inconsistent styles together. But the first notions of those who began to study old English architecture led to an attack on this incongruity in 1824. The Norman carvings were all replaced by modern work and some additions. The arcade, with its grotesque heads, was set up in 1827, and though it is out of place and, moreover, deceptive, will certainly be admired. Various ancient buildings, one of them the chapel of St. Anne, were removed. But it was not until 1830 that the great restoration was begun. During the progress of these disastrous operations the circular church was vaulted in stucco and painted; the flooring was lowered, the tombs and effigies of the knights removed and their bones cast out; the chancel was gutted, the monuments taken down, much injured in the process, and finally “as far as possible” set up again in the triforium, a few being hidden away under the bellows of the organ; the beautiful reredos was taken away, the whole chancel repaved, revaulted, and painted; the church filled with tiers of pews, hiding any Gothic memorials which were allowed to remain; and finally, all the windows were reglazed, in a style supposed to be Early English and, at all events, no worse than what would be put in at the present day to judge by some neighbouring examples. All this work of destruction went on for ten years and cost more than £70,000.