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8 unusual facts about Temple Church


2008 Temple Festival

The 1608 charter imposed a number of conditions on Inner and Middle Temple in order that they retain the freehold in perpetuity: the accommodation and legal training of students, the maintenance of the Temple Church as a place of worship and the provision of lodging for its Master.

Charles Winston

He acted as a consultant for stained glass windows in various churches and cathedrals, including Norwich Cathedral, Glasgow Cathedral, St Paul's Cathedral and the Temple Church in London.

David Lewer

Lewer became a chorister at the Temple Church, London in 1931, remaining in the choir until 1933.

Ernest Lough

He auditioned at Southwark Cathedral, but joined the choir of the Temple Church in London in 1924, which was under the direction of organist and choirmaster George Thalben-Ball (later Sir George Thalben-Ball) who had just succeeded Sir Henry Walford Davies.

Henry Playford

He lived in Arundel Street in London and had a shop near Temple Church 1685–1695 then in Temple Change 1695–1704 and finally in Middle Temple Gate in 1706.

Mark Croucher

He was educated at St Paulinus Church of England Primary School, Crayford, Kent, and then at the City of London School, London which he attended on a scholarship as a chorister at the Temple Church under choirmaster Sir George Thalben-Ball, appearing on two records made by the choir during his time there.

Temple Pyx

The Temple Pyx is a mid 12th century medieval bronze gilt plaque, suggested as German in origin (although it was discovered in the Temple Church in London).

Timothy Littleton

Littleton died at the age of 70 and was buried in Temple Church.


Richard Wooddeson

He died, unmarried, on 29 October 1822 at his house in Boswell Court, Lincoln's Inn Fields, and was buried on 5 November in the benchers' vault in the Temple church.


see also

Ernest Lough

Lord Justice Eldon Bankes suggested that the Temple choir should make a record, and on 15 March 1927, the Gramophone Company brought its new mobile recording unit to the Temple Church where the choir recorded Mendelssohn's Hear My Prayer, in which the famous solo O for the Wings of a Dove was sung by Ernest Lough, then aged 15.

Forty Martyrs of Sebaste

A number of auxiliary chapels were dedicated to the Forty, and there are several instances when an entire temple (church building) is dedicated to them: for example Xiropotamou Monastery on Mount Athos and the 13th-century Holy Forty Martyrs Church, in Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria.

John Howard Kyan

The timber used in building the Oxford and Cambridge Club, British Museum, Royal College of Surgeons, Westminster Bridewell, the new roof of the Temple Church, and the Ramsgate harbour works was also prepared by Kyan's process.

Lionel Luckhoo

Jones was the founder and leader of the People's Temple Church, and had left California in the 1970s to establish a commune in Guyana known as Jonestown.