Basic HTML Version
18
City & Village Tours: 0845 812 5000 info@cityandvillagetours.com
for the title of England’s most beautiful village.
It’s certainly one that’s the most often painted and
photographed and it would probably come out as
clear winner in terms of chocolate boxes, biscuit tins,
jigsaw puzzles and calendars. Finchingfield has all
the ingredients for the perfect English village and
they are beautifully arranged - the village green
and duck pond surrounded by cottages that span
the centuries from the mediaeval to the Georgian,
a 15th century Guildhall and as a marvellously
photogenic backdrop an ancient church and a
windmill sit slightly above the green and pond atop
a gentle hill. Finchingfield is not just a pretty face
either, it is a successful and thriving community
with characterful old English pubs, tea rooms,
primary school, a Post Office, grocers store and
doctors surgery all around the green. In the 1950s
the 101 Dalmations author Dodie Smith came to live
nearby, now she lies forever more in the churchyard.
For the afternoon we are going to visit a slip of land
near Braintee that had been owned by King Harold
before he died at the Battle of Hastings but which
later came into the ownership of those mysterious
military monks - the Knights Templar. Now I use the
word
later
here loosely because this afternoon you are
going to step inside two massive ‘cathedrals of wood’
that were built to house wheat and barley from this
land an incredible 800 years ago. It’s hard to fathom
quite how old these beautiful buildings that seem to
emerge organically from the land itself are. The
Barley Barn was built during the lifetime of Genghis
Khan and St Francis of Assisi, the first timbers
cut down and assembled before the ink on Magna
Carta had time to dry.
The Knights Templar amassed great wealth, much
of it from 7000 manors and farms scattered across
Europe - 50 of them in England. Cressing Temple
money went into the main pot at the Knights Templar
headquarters near London’s Fleet Street. Perhaps you
have seen their crusader tombs (below) in the round
Temple Church in Legal London? With great reserves
of gold and bases across Europe and the Med the
Knights Templar became the world’s first
international bankers issuing promissory notes that
were the first ever cheques. Eventually they were
brought down and later these barns were passed on
to their brother order the Knights Hospitallers.