Ludlow Templar Chapel

The Knights Templar Chapel

by Charles E S Fairey

Our Chapel’s Saint Magdalene

The Great Angel of our heart,

Our secret sacred repository

Where held all The World’s mystery.

Thirteen seats in a circle

Where each great warrior rests,

With carvings where arches embrace

And Norman door to Templar Altar face.

A circular monument to Our Lord

With Chancel beyond great arch,

To the Altar with its Tabernacles

And above The Christ with shackles.

Staircase winding to our library

Where all we know is kept,

Battlement to the top of the Church

And look up to the sky and star search.

Two Templar Crosses carved

Like our two seated riders seal,

The floor where the fallen sleep

This Chapel hidden in Ludlow’s Keep.

Plaster walls painted with religious scenes

Of our great victories and Crusades,

Secret knowledge learnt from the Holy Land

Our initiates ascend by the Master’s hand.

Here is our Magdalene Chapel

We adorn our battle dress and red cross,

Learn what secrets the World has veiled

In our sacred scrolls secrets revealed.

Before we set sail to distant land

To serve Our Lord and people,

We pray for our safe return

And the new powers we shall earn.

The battles will be hard

Not all of us shall return,

From this Crusade or Papal treason

Only Our Lord sees our sacrifice and reason.

When we thirteen rest again

Here at our shared circle,

Our lives will have gone before

And will have learnt the Greatest Lore.

People will pass through our tabernacle

And wonder what Great Warriors sat,

Reposed, and what rituals we saw

As another walks through Norman door,

Wonder what knowledge we knew

And what great battles and symbols true,

Walk with us our Great Modern Warrior

And ascend with knowledge of our secret logia.

Our Chapel’s Saint Magdalene

The Great Angel of our heart,

Our secret sacred repository

Where held all The World’s mystery.

The Castle in the Town of Ludlow in Shropshire, includes a Chapel in its grounds which may be linked to the Knights Templar.

Ludlow Castle is important in relation to the Templars not so much for what it is,but for what it represents.

Within the castle is a remarkable, well-preserved early Norman chapel dedicated to St Mary Magdalene, which may have been associated with the Templars (the interior carvings include two Templar crosses, and the saint is their particular favourite).

It has a round nave and, as such, gives a good idea of what the small Templar ‘round’ churches would have looked like before they were lost, as at Dover, Hereford and Bristol.