Templecombe Preceptory (or Combe Templariorum) was established in 1185 in

Templecombe Templecombe is a village in Somerset, England, situated on the A357 road five miles south of Wincanton, east of Yeovil, and west of Salisbury. It is in the Blackmore Vale. Templecombe is the main settlement in the civil parish of Abbas an ...

Somerset Somerset ( , ), Archaism, archaically Somersetshire ( , , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel, Gloucestershire, and Bristol to the north, Wiltshire to the east ...

, England. One of the manors within the parish was held by Earl Leofwine. It was awarded to Bishop

Odo of Bayeux Odo of Bayeux (died 1097) was a Norman nobleman who was a bishop of Bayeux in Normandy and was made Earl of Kent in England following the Norman Conquest. He was the maternal half-brother of duke, and later king, William the Conqueror, and w ...

after the

Norman Conquest The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Normans, Norman, French people, French, Flemish people, Flemish, and Bretons, Breton troops, all led by the Du ...

. It was his descendant Serlo FitzOdo who granted it to 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 ...

who established a

preceptory A preceptor (from Latin, "''praecepto''") is a teacher responsible for upholding a ''precept'', meaning a certain law or tradition. Buddhist monastic orders Senior Buddhist monks can become the preceptors for newly ordained monks. In the Buddhi ...

in the village in 1185. The preceptory served as an administrative centre for the lands held by the Templars in the south west of England and Cornwall. It may also have been used to train men and horses for the

Crusades The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding t ...

. After the Knights Templar were suppressed following the 1307 order by

Pope Clement IV Pope Clement IV (; 23 November 1190 – 29 November 1268), born Gui Foucois (; or ') and also known as Guy le Gros ( French for "Guy the Fat"; ), was bishop of Le Puy (1257–1260), archbishop of Narbonne (1259–1261), cardinal of Sabina ( ...

, it was granted to the

Knights of St John 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 u ...

who held it until the dissolution of the monasteries in 1540. It was then granted to

Richard Duke Richard Duke (13 June 1658 – 11 February 1711) was an English clergyman and poet, associated with the Tory writers of the Restoration era. Life He was born in London, son of Richard Duke, and was admitted to Westminster School in 1670. He ...

, with the thirteenth century chapel surviving in private use. This chapel was almost entirely demolished in 1980 to make way for a house. The so-called 'Templecombe Head', a face painted on oak panels ''c''.1280 and discovered in an outhouse in the village, may have been linked to the preceptory. It is thought to depict either Christ or John the Baptist. An attempt to discover 'the village of the Templars' was made by archaeological television programme ''

Time Team ''Time Team'' is a British television programme that originally aired on Channel 4, Channel 4 from 16 January 1994 to 7 September 2014. It returned in 2022 on online platforms YouTube and Patreon. Created by television produce ...

''.

References

{{coord, 51.0012, -2.4181, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title Monasteries in Somerset 1539 disestablishments in England Preceptories of the Knights Hospitaller in England 1185 establishments in England Christian monasteries established in the 1180s