Because of my interest in the Facts and Fiction surrounding the DaVinci Code, I was especially interested in two sites in London.  One being Westminster Abbey, and of course the compelling Temple Church with the effigies of knights jutting out from its floor.  I was fortunate when I arrived there, and the keeper allowed me to enter approximately 15 minutes before the usual time.  I was given an opportunity to visit in quiet, before the normal throngs came.  It wasn't long however, before the temple quickly filled up with all the "pilgrims" sent by Dan Brown's novel.

The Temple Church is a remarkable place - not only because it has survived nearly intact in its original form in the Center of London for 800 years. It has been the ground zero of pivotal events in British history. Its minor role in Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code has created a surge of popularity more recently.

Temple Church has survived the crushing of the Knights Templar by the Pope in 1307, the disbanding of the Knights Hospitallier (its subsequent owners) by Henry VIII during the reformation of 1540, the Great Fire Of London in 1666, unwarranted “restoration” by the architect Wren in the aftermath of the fire, Victorian remodelling in 1841, and incendiary bomb attack during World War II. It is one of the oldest buildings in London (only Westminster Abbey and the White Tower at the Tower Of London are older), and is the only remaining example of Romanesque architecture left in the city.

The round section of Temple Church was built first and is based on the church on the temple mount in Jerusalem. In keeping with the The Da Vinci Code’s plotline, Dan Brown attaches some significance to the fact that the design doesn’t follow the typical cross-shaped plan of nearly every Christian church, implying that it was a deliberately pagan design. This ignores the fact that the design is a copy of a Roman building in Jerusalem, later converted to the Christian Church of the Holy Sepulchre in what was (at that time) the Christian Holy Land, and the site where the Templar order was founded. Temple Church in London was consecrated in 1185 by none less than the Patriarch of Jerusalem and in the presence of King Henry II.

There is an extensive history of Temple Church on a webpage @ http://www.lodgephoto.com/articles/temple_church.htm