The Interior of St.Mary - Page 1
The church was mentioned in the Domesday Book of A.D. 1086. It was granted
to the Order of the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem in A.D. 1154. This was
an order of fighting monks who were known as the Templars. It was they who
added the present north and south transepts, originally walled off from the
main body of the church, as chapels for the sole use of their members.
They rebuilt the nave and chancel on the original Saxon plan with the walls
in one straight line with the tower walls. You can see this on the photograph
, right, upper, of the view towards the altar, there is no arch between the
nave and the chancel. The Templars were exempt from all taxes, and with branches
in every country of the then known world, the Order became extremely wealthy
and in turn organized an International banking system. The Temple church in
London which was the English Headquarters of the Order contains an underground
chapel in which the Crown Jewels were on occasion deposited as security for
loans.
View of the chancel from the west
View of the tower arch from the east
The photograph below shows the small chancel in the south transept. The
font is central to this and to the left of the font is a doorway which leads
to the sacristy which is a small room , built between the chancels to act
as a strong-room to house valuables and relics.
In England soon after A.D. 1308, when the Crusades were to all but ended,
the Order had almost disappeared. Although individual Templars owned no personal
property, many were martyred. In A.D. 1324 a statute of Edward II accepted
the International ruling of the Pope who had formally dissolved the Order
that all Templar property must be assigned to another Order of Crusaders,
the Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, often known as the Knights
of St. John or the Hospitallers, who were held in high esteem.
The new owners opened the Templar chapels to the local people and built
themselves a new chapel north of the tower.
At the Reformation the Order of St.John was dissolved by an act of Parliament
under Henry VIII in A.D. 1540 and the new chapel later fell into picturesque
ruin. The Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem was re-founded in
England in 1831 as a charitable and benevolent organisation, and received
a Royal Charter from Queen Victoria in 1888. It is probably best known today
for the valuable work of it's Ambulance Brigade.
Above is the tomb of Richard Burré (or Burry) of Henry VIII's days, who died
in 1527, a member of the London Guild Companies
Above are two close-ups of the tomb carvings
External - Inernal 1
- Internal 2 - Other Points
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