Temple Balsall () is a village in the

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

of Balsall, in the

Metropolitan Borough of Solihull The Metropolitan Borough of Solihull is a metropolitan borough in West Midlands (county), West Midlands county, England. It is named after its largest town, Solihull, from which Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council is based. For Eurostat purpose ...

in the English West Midlands, situated between the large villages of Knowle (where population details as taken at the 2011 census can be found) and

Balsall Common Balsall Common is a large village in the Metropolitan Borough of Solihull, West Midlands, England. It is situated northwest of Kenilworth, west of the centre of Coventry (but only two miles (3 km) from the western part of Coventry), east of S ...

. It was formerly in

Warwickshire Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It is bordered by Staffordshire and Leicestershire to the north, Northamptonshire to the east, Ox ...

and is on a notoriously bad series of bends on the B4101 Kenilworth Road. It is one of the oldest and most interesting sites in the borough. It is named after, and dates from the time of, the

Knights Templar The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, mainly known as the Knights Templar, was a Military order (religious society), military order of the Catholic Church, Catholic faith, and one of the most important military ord ...

. They farmed about of the estate in the 12th century, and established Balsall Preceptory where a number of brothers lived and ran the estate. After the Order was suppressed, the estate was given to the

Knights Hospitaller The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller (), is a Catholic military order. It was founded in the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem in the 12th century and had headquarters there ...

of St John. They lost it when

Henry VIII Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is known for his Wives of Henry VIII, six marriages and his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. ...

dissolved the monasteries and

Queen Elizabeth I Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. She was the last and longest reigning monarch of the House of Tudor. Her eventful reign, and its effect on history ...

gave the estate to Robert Dudley. The 13th-century church and Old Hall, and 17th-century almshouses survive. Robert Dudley's granddaughter, Lady Katharine Leveson of Trentham Hall, Staffordshire, inherited the estate. On her death in 1674, Lady Leveson left endowments for almshouses, the Lady Katharine Leveson primary school and the local church. There are only a handful of residences in the hamlet.

References

{{authority control Hamlets in the West Midlands (county) Conservation areas in England Preceptories of the Knights Hospitaller in England Preceptories of the Knights Templar