Church of St Mary, Abbas and Templecombe

One of the manors within the parish was held by Earl Leofwine who gave it to Bishop Odo of Bayeux after the Norman Conquest. The church was probably established during the period when the manor was held by Shaftesbury Abbey, but granted to the Knights Templar while it was held by his descendant Serlo FitzOdo, who established a preceptory in the village in 1185. The preceptory served as an administrative centre for the lands held by the Templars in the south west of England and Cornwall. It may also have been used to train men and horses for the Crusades. After the Knights Templar were suppressed following the 1307 order by Pope Clement IV, it was granted to the Knights of St John, who held…

The stone church is dressed with Hamstone with clay tile roofs. It has a two-bay chancel, four-bay nave and a south transept. The entrance porch is at the southern end of the church at the base of the two-stage tower. In the churchyard is a 15 ft high stone cross which serves as the war memorial for the village. The churchyard also contains four Commonwealth war graves, of two British Army soldiers of World War I and an airman and a WRNS Petty Officer of World War II.

In the church is a painting on wooden boards of a head, which was discovered in the roof of an outhouse of a local building in 1945. The tenant of the cottage was collecting wood in an outhouse where part of the ceiling had fallen down. She noticed a face above her which was on a wooden panel fixed by wire to the inside of the roof and previously plastered over. The painting is thought to be from the 13th century, Restoration work in the 1950s and again in the 1980s has identified gold stars on the picture and microscopic evidence for bright colours which are no longer in evidence. The colours were present in the 1940s when it was discovered, but impaired when the local vicar cleaned it in…