ABSTRACT
The Templar estates in the British Isles were welded on to an ancient landscape where most settlements already existed and most land was already apportioned. The Templars relied on the munificence of existing landowners to give them estates, and on their own efforts to improve and add to these. It is no coincidence that the land given to the Templars was often on the poorer soils, lowlying marshlands or densely wooded areas that had to be cleared before the land could be planted. The cleared and drained land meant that new settlements had to be built for the labour needed to work the land. In Lincolnshire, for example, seven settlements founded after Domesday were associated with Templar land. These included the settlement around the important preceptor of Temple Bruer.
