St Saviour, Stydd

The Church of St Saviour at Stydd was founded circa 1136, in the reign of king Stephen by the Knights Hospitaller. The Church is  Norman style although the three light east window with its fine tracery is a little later and dates from the 13th century. The north wall retains all its original features having two narrow round- headed labelled windows. Between them  the original doorway is blocked-up and leaning against the wall is the original door.

The font belongs to the first half of the 16th century and was a gift from Sir Thomas Pemberton who was the Commander of Newland, under which the community of Hospitallers at Stydd was a camera. In 1338 the Commander of Newland had to pay £5.6.8 for a yearly pension of the chaplain at Stydd.

On the South wall is the main door, the fine oak nailed-studded door is original.  The straight headed windows of three lights date from the 15th century and came from St Wilfrid's Church in Ribchester and were installed in the 17th century. The oak screen and pulpit are 17th century.

Chibburn Commandery

The small commandery of Chibburn, between the village of Widdrington and Druridge Bay on the Northumberland coast was donated to the Hospitallers in 1313. The site was located on the main route used by pilgrims visiting Holy Island and Lindisfarne. These ruins are the best preserved commandery of the Order of St John in England. The site is enclosed by a wall and was originally surrounded by a moat,  now filed in.

The commandery buildings at Chibburn are arranged around a courtyard and consist of a chapel, hall and living accommodation for the three members of the Order who lived there including the commander.

There was once a tower on the north side of which little remains. On the west side of the courtyard are the remains of the great hall. The fireplaces have massive lintels.

The chapel on the south side of the courtyard is the best preserved part of the commandery.

Following the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1540 Chibburn was sold by the Crown in 1553 to Sir John Widdrington.  He used  it as the dower house for Whittington Castle. The site was abandoned after being razed by French troops who raided the Northumberland Coast in 1693.

Halston Commandery

The commandery of Halston in Shropshire was founded between 1165 and 1187 when Roger de Powis, lord of Whittington granted the hospital part of his demesne. The grant was later confirmed in a charter given to the Hospitallers by King John. An early gift to Halston was the Hospital of Oswestry which was transferred to the Order in 1217-18. The commandery also owned the church of Kinnerley which came into their ownership before 1248.

Following the conquest of Wales by the Edward I, the commandery of Dogynwal (Yspytty Ifan in Denbighshire) was joined to Halston, by 1294. Halston  then became the administrative centre for all the Hospitaller estates in North Wales. It also included property in the neighbouring lordship of Ellesmere which included the church and its parochial rights which had been granted to the Order by Llewellyn the Great sometime before 1225.

A fascinating insight into life on the Commandery of Halston was given by the report of Prior de Thame into the state of the Order in 1338. In charge was the commander, Fra' Phillipe de Lude and his colleague, Fra' Alban de Nevill both of whom were serving brothers and full members of  the Order. As was the usual practice the management of the estates and the administration of its courts was in the hands of a professional seneschal. The running of the household was the responsibility of a chamberlain. Both these officers were in receipt of a salary paid in addition to their maintenance.

The household staff also included a porter, a baker, two pages, a cook and his assistant, and the commander's two servants. There were  two farm bailiffs whose job was to supervise the serfs working in the fields. Two chaplains also lived at Halston, one who looked after the commandery chapel and the other who ministered at the chapel of the Whittington Castle. Both had their board at the high table and were each in receipt of a salary of £2. A retired priest also had his board and lodging, by virtue of holding a corrody at Halston. There were also the two clerks whose job it was to collect the frary. who  resided at Halston. One seventh of the annual income of the commandery at Halston came from these frary collections made in neighbouring churches from voluntary contributions from the faithful.

The only building at Halston which dates from the era of Order of St. John is the commandery chapel. The timber framed building is now the private chapel belonging to Halston Hall. It is one of only two timber framed ecclesiastical buildings in Shropshire and never became a parish church. The chapel now stands in splendid isolation, surrounded by ancient yew trees in the parkland to the south of the mansion.

The pattern of the timber framing is close studding divided by a mid-rail. At the east end a framed chancel forms a rectangular extension. The corner posts of the chancel and the east end of the main body of the chapel have beautiful jeweled feet.  The side windows have moulded window frames and mullions with ogee mouldings matching those on the rafters. At the west end, the entrance to the chapel is through an added on brick tower.

The chapel was refitted in the 18th century with  wonderful carvings in the  interior. However the original roof was covered over but was retained; it has three main trusses each of tie-and-collar beam construction with v-struts. These timbers have been carbon dated to a felling in the winter of 1437-8. Halston Chapel is one of the least visited and most atmospheric monuments of the Order of St. John left in England.

Temple Manor, Strood

The manor of Strood near the River Medway in Kent was given to the Order of the Temple by Henry II in 1159. The hall was built at the beginning of the 13th century to provide accommodation for their knights and other dignitaries travelling to Dover and on to the Holy Land. By the 14th century the estate had been farmed out to tenants and the income was used to support the military activities of the Order in the East.

When in 1312 the Order of the Temple was suppressed in England, all their assets including Temple manor passed to the Order of St.John. An inventory of 1313 at Strood lists a hall, a chamber a chapel and a barn. Some years later the Prior of St. John complained that the King was still occupying former Templar properties, including Strood. The protest had no effect and in 1324 Strood, although legally the property of the Order of St.John, had to be ceded to the King. In 1342 Edward III granted it to the Countess of Pembroke who gifted it to support her nunnery at Denny in Cambridgeshire, another former Templar property.

The brick fireplace was inserted into the hall in the 17th century when the manor was used as a farmhouse.

Swingfield Commandery

Swingfield near Dover in Kent was home to some of the sisters of the Order of St. John before they were moved to Mynchin Buckland, in Somerset in 1180. After the nuns departure, the Knights of St. John established a commandery at Swingfield which they held until the Dissolution of the monasteries in England in 1540.

The only commandery building to survive is the chapel with part of the adjoining hall, although the remains of other buildings are discernible in earth works to the south and west of the chapel. The chapel was built in the thirteenth century and still has its piscine, a stone basin for washing sacred vessels and an aumbrey a cupboard for storing communion vessels. These and the three lancet windows in the east wall all survived the chapel's conversion into a farmhouse after the Dissolution.

The report into the state of the Order of St. John in England ordered by Prior de Thame in 1338, found at Swingfield Commandery a manor house with a garden valued at 6s.8d. a year, the church at £10, a share of the church at Tilmanstone at £8 and the confraria or voluntary contributions at £20. Further income came from rents in the neighbourhood bringing the total receipts of the commandery to £82 4s.4d.

The expences born by Swingfield Commandery  included £11 6s. for bread, £11 for flesh, fish and other foodstuffs, and £10 for beer. 69s for robes and other necessities for the commander Fra, Ralph Basset and the brother Fra. Alan Mounceux, 20s. for the repair of buildings, 40s. for the visit of the prior for two days, and the stipends of the three chaplains, a squire, two clerks, a chamberlein, a cook, a baker, a porter, a bailiff, a mower, two grooms and a page, ammounting to a total of £52 18s. 4d. The difference was paid to the Common Treasury for the support of the Convent at Rhodes.

Sutton-at-Hone Commandery

In 1199, Robert de Basing gave his manor at Sutton-at-Hone to the Order of St. John. The Hospitallers built their commandery using materials recycled from the Roman villa at Darenth. Pieces of Roman tiles and concrete are visible in the flint walls. The commandery was surrounded by water, on the western boundary by the River Derent and on the other three sides by a  moat fed by the river. Henry III often stayed at the Sutton Commandery, he enjoyed the right of free entertainment.

The chapel is the only part of the commandery buildings still standing. A round stone basin for the priest to wash his hands has been dated to c1200 and another wedge shaped basin for the Paten and Chalice has been dated to a later date' possibly to 1234, when Edmund Rich became Archbishop of Canterbury and insisted upon greater reverence during the Mass. That was the same year that the king ordered five oaks be provided for re-roofing the chapel, which had only been constructed a few years earlier.

After the Order of St. John was suppressed in England in 1540 the Commandery of Sutton-at-Hone became Crown property, and most of the domestic and ancillery buildings were demolished, the stone being reused for new buildings in the same way the Hospitallers had reused the Roman villa. It seems that here at Sutton-at-Hone as in other Hospitaller sites, the chapel was spared  for reasons of superstition. The former chapel was  later incorporated into the fabric of a mansion house.

St. Mary North Petherton

The minster Church of St. Mary at North Petherton  was already ancient when in 1166 William de Erlegh included it and its five dependencies in his foundation grant to Buckland Priory, a house of Augustinian canons. In 1180 the Augustinians were replaced by Henry II with the Sisters of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem or Knights Hospitaller. For the next 350 years the Hospitallers were the 'patrons' of  North Petherton Church and appointed its vicars.The Order of St. John built the present church in the mid 15th century and the beautiful tower a few years later, at the beginning of the 16th century.

In the late 12th century the vicar received £39 2s a year out of which he owed a pension of £3 8s 3d. to the sisters of Buckland Priory. He did however receive an allowance of hay from the priory. At times the prioresses of Buckland and the vicars of Petherton enjoyed somewhat strained relations. In the 1450's the prioress had to sue the vicar Sir Robert Norys, because he hadn't paid her the stipend due from  parish revenues.

In 1383 an eight year old girl was placed in the priory of Buckland, 'with the connivance of the prioress' to deprive her of an inheritance....in favour of her uncle. Did Geoffrey Chaucer have this prioress in mind when he described the prioress in the Canterbury Tales? She was a contemporary of Geoffrey Chaucer, author of the Canterbury Tales. He was warden of Petherton Park (a deer park), from 1390 until his death in 1400. The timber used in the roof of St. Mary's grew in Petherton Park, famous for its oaks. Geoffrey was succeeded as warden by his son Thomas who may well have overseen the delivery of the wood.

Peckham Commandery

In 1408 Sir John Culpeper gave his holding in the manor of West Peckham in Kent to the Knights of St. John. The gift  included the manor of Stalisfield and the rectories of Rodmersham, Hadlow and Tonbridge and the chapels of  Shibbourn and Capell. By the time of the enquiry into the assets of the religious orders ordered by Henry VIII, the Valour of 1535, the Commandery of Peckham was valued at £63 6s. 8. a year.

The Commandery of Peckham belonged to that category of commanderies  reserved to the gift of the Grand Master that went by the name of  a Camera Magistralis. Pope Pius IV in his Bull "Cicumspecta" calls them "Preceptoriae et predia Mensa Magistrali unita." There were twenty-three of them in all, one in every priorate and they were let out on long leases. In return, the recipients had to pay  an annual pension based on the commandery's revenues. The income from these commanderies went to support the Grand Master and were neccessary to enable him to dispense the patronage and judicious gifts to friends that enabled him to govern the Order with increasing autocracy. So, the Commandery of Peckham was the magistral commandery in the Priory of England.

The oldest part of the commandery dates from 1408, but following a fire in 1500 the north range was rebuilt. In 1417 Sir Henry Crownhall was granted the Commandery of Peckham on a payment of 400 Venetian gold ducats paid to the Grand Master. The last tenants of the Magistral Commandery were the Bell family who held it for forty years, until the Dissolution, at a cost of £60 per annum. The former commandery is now a private house known as Duke's Place.

Temple Balsall Commandery

Temple Balsall in the Forest of Arden was gifted to the Knights Templar in 1146 by Roger de Mowbray. He was a major patron of the Order and an enthusiastic supporter of the crusade, so much so that he went on crusade three times himself . On the last occasion when over 65 he was taken prisoner and had to be  ransomed by the Templars, he was buried in the Holy Land.

Temple Balsall had by 1226 became a preceptory, an administrative centre for other estates gifted to the Order in the area, and was overseen by a senior member of the Order known as the preceptor. It would have been a large establishment, the domestic buildings including the hall and the preceptor's lodging attached to it, a pantry, buttery, kitchen, larder, bakehouse, brewhouse and a dovecot with boxes for 80 birds. The hall still stands, though it was covered with a skin of bricks in the eighteenth century.

Only the preceptor and one or two others would have been members of the Order of the Temple. Most of the other members of the community living  at Balsall would have been involved in agriculture. At one time it is recorded that there were 19 people living in the home farm at Balsall. There were ploughmen and stockmen, a dairyman, a miller, a groom, two woodsmen,and a lad to make 'pottage' for the labourers. In addition there were also six pensioners who had board and lodging in return for their faithful service to the Order.

The chapel was the last to be built by the  Templar's  in England before their suppression. After falling into disrepair in the seventeenth century the chapel was restored by George Gilbert Scott in 1849. In the Order's day there were three chaplains who said Mass every day and a deacon to serve them.

With the loss of the Holy land the fabulously wealthy and powerful Order had lost the very reason for its existence, the protection of pilgrims. This weakness allowed the Order's enemies to strike. Seizing the opportunity the King of France moved against them using  trumped up charges of heresy, homosexuality and obscenity. The Templars in France were suddenly arrested in 1307, tortured and tried. Almost one hundred and twenty were burnt at the stake.

The Templars in England were also all arrested without warning in January 1308. Some were held in prison for over three years but nothing was ever proved against them. Five Templars were arrested at Balsall, a chaplain, two knights and two serving brothers. There was no mention of a preceptor. So the Order was suppressed.(An inventory made at the time of the arrests shows that the larder was well stocked for winter, including 38 sides of bacon, 2 hams,3 carcasses of beef, over 2000 herrings, over 100 dried fish and 7 cheeses.)

By an edict of Pope Clement, the Templar's possessions went to their great rivals, the Order of St John. The Knights of St John used the term commandery instead of preceptory, headed by a senior member of the Order known as a commander. At the time of the enquiry  into the state of the Order in England by Grand Prior de Thame in 1338, Balsall was headed by Commander Henry de Buckston assisted by Brother Simon Dyseny, a knight and Brother John de Sprottelee, a serving brother. The Commander Henry de Buckston was also of the rank of serving brother. There were two chaplains (not Hospitallers) who said Mass in the chapel and the rest of the domestic staff included a turnkey, cook, baker, a porter, three youths who acted as servants to the commander and a steward to hold the manor courts.

Temple Balsall was combined with their existing  commandery of Grafton, and the name 'Temple' became attached to Grafton although it had never been a Templar property. Two of the commanders of Balsall and Grafton rose to hold the office of Grand Prior of the Hospital of England, Robert Mallory, in 1433, and John Langstrother in 1470, but he was beheaded the next year after being captured at the battle of Tewkesbury, where he had fought on the losing Lancastrian side.

By 1470 Temple Balsall had ceased to be the residence of a commander, instead it was leased out to a lay tenant, John Beaufitz who live there. From then on the estate was farmed out until the Order of St. John was suppressed by Henry VIII along with the monasteries and other religious orders.

Preserved in the old hall are a number of heraldic shields which date to before 1540. The anchor device may have been awarded to William Weston, Grand Prior of the Hospital in England, 1527-1540 in recognition of his prowess at sea.