The Weavers’ Church

THE ruined Temple Church, just off Victoria Street, is one of the most enigmatic places in the west of England, with a number of curious tales and legends attached to it.

This isn’t surprising given it was built on the site of a former church – or ‘temple’ belonging to the Knights Templar, the medieval order of soldier-monks formed to protect pilgrims journeying to the Holy Land.

The Templars’ suppression led to all manner of tales of mysticism and occult overtones, though the preceptory, the local branch, as it were, at Bristol does not seem to have been a large one, and was a small part of a vast empire of property across western Europe which had been gifted to the Templars.

Sadly, there are no tales of fabulous riches and hidden treasure, though it is said that the ghost of one of the Templars used to stalk the nearby fire station.

The present church (what’s left of it) was built in the middle ages and became the known as the

Weavers’ Church because it was at the centre of Bristol’s cloth industry. In medieval times, weavers worked from homes in the neighbourhood and much of what is now the churchyard was a small part of a huge area known as the Rack Close, where finished cloth was stretched out on racks to dry.

This was marshy ground, and consequently the tower leans at a slight angle. According to legend, choirboys and parishioners would turn up for a service and put nuts in the crack between tower and church. When the bells were rang the tower would move very slightly, so when everyone came out after mass, they could retrieve their nuts, all cracked and ready for eating.

The most notorious episode in Temple Church’s history came in 1778 when it was the scene of the exorcism of George Lukins, aka the “Yatton Daemoniac”. Seven ministers, including John Wesley himself, supposedly cast out the demons who had possessed Lukins, a tailor from

Yatton.

Temple Church’s overcrowded graveyard was closed, along with most other parish churchyards in Bristol, as a health hazard in the mid-19th century.

The present-day Architecture Centre aspiration to “transform it into both an inspirational destination and a thriving space for the communities who work and live nearby,” is nothing new.

In Victorian Bristol the former graveyard was reopened a few years after it closed down as a small urban park, a function it still serves very well, as generations of office workers around the area will tell you.

The church was gutted by fire during the first major German air raid on Bristol, and according to a well-worn story, an officer from the company of Royal Engineers who came into the city to help clear up, decided that the tower was leaning dangerously and should be demolished for safety, and was only prevented at the last minute by local residents who persuaded him that it had always leaned.