ABSTRACT
Places names and physical remains testify to the material memory of the Templars and Order of St. John in Britain. Central to this is the Temple church in London, where visitors recalled the history of the Knights Templar and their modern legal successors drew parallels between their work to protect the poor and innocent and their knightly predecessors. This was underlined in the language of memorial services marking the 800th anniversary of the church’s foundation and the capture of Jerusalem in 1917. The Priory building and church of St. John at Clerkenwell in London had a more chequered history, but were ‘revived’ as the headquarters of the Order of St. John in the nineteenth century and furnished to celebrate their past history and purpose. Owners of other properties associated with the Orders also drew on their history in stained glass imagery and antiquarians discussed finds which emerged in church restorations and archaeological excavations in popular periodicals.
