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The Temple is one of London's legal centres, known as Inns of Court. Originally it was the home of the Knights Templar, an order of religious military knights, who were very powerful from the late 12th century. There is evidence that the Knights Templar may have been responsible for looking after the Holy Grail. A great deal of information and insights into the world of the Knights Templar can be found in the book 'The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail' by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln.

Those who have read that book will also be interested in seeing the mural by Jean Cocteau in Notre Dame De France, a church just to the north of Leicester Square.

Inside the Temple Church, there are effigies of the Knights dating back to the 13th century. Plaster casts of some of these effigies can also be seen in the Victoria & Albert Museum.

The temple is made up of two of the four Inns of Court, the Inner Temple and the Middle Temple.

It was in Middle Temple Hall back in 1601 that Shakespeare's Twelfth Night was first performed. In Charles Dickens' novel Great Expectations, Pip was lodging in The Temple when his bizarre benefactor, Magwitch, visited him. And continuing the literary theme the Temple fountain appears in a passage from Dickens' Martin Chuzszlewit.

Opening Times
All Day Wednesday - Sunday

Nearest Underground (Tube) Station: Temple