Temple Church

The 12th-century church was a Templar preceptory, built on land granted to the Templars by Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester, sometime in the two decades before his death in 1147. The Templars exercised specific legal privileges within their estate, known as Temple Fee. They claimed immunity from local authority, answering only to the Pope, which frequently caused friction with the town burgesses. This autonomy was highlighted by a legal dispute in 1242 involving a Deodand; following a fatal accident where a boy was killed by a falling pillory in Temple Street, the Order refused to pay the customary fine to local justices, eventually settling the matter with an ex gratia payment to the…

The 12th-century church had a round nave, with an aisle arcade, and a chancel with a semicircular apse. This chancel was replaced with a rectangular one, with a chapel added to its north side in Decorated style, 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 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 in 1299, and a chantry licensed to John Frauceys the younger by Edward III in 1331.