Learn more about the Knights Templars, Knights Hospitallers and Order of St Lazarus Presence in Yorkshire below:

Knights Templars and Hospitallers at Ribston & Wetherby, Yorkshire

APRIL 2026

The twin preceptories of Ribston and Wetherby in North Yorkshire stand as fascinating reminders of the medieval military-religious orders that shaped the region’s religious, economic, and social landscape. Initially established by the Knights Templars in the early 13th century and later transferred to the Knights Hospitaller, these sites provide insight into the management of estates, chapels, and markets, as well as the enduring legacy of crusading orders in northern England.

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Temple Hirst and the Knights Templar: The Documentary and Physical Legacy of a Yorkshire Preceptory

Temple Hirst stands as one of Yorkshire’s most significant surviving links to the medieval Knights Templar, the famous military-religious order founded in the aftermath of the First Crusade.

The very name of the village preserves this association: Temple denoting land once held by the Templars, and Hirstderiving from the Old English hyrst, meaning a wooded hill or copse — a fitting description for slightly raised ground in this low-lying landscape near the River Aire

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The Knights Templar and Hospitaller Presence at Kirkby Fleetham

Landholding, Ecclesiastical Control, and the Effigy of Nicholas Stapleton

The parish of Kirkby Fleetham provides a valuable case study for examining the localised operation of the Knights Templar and their successors, the Knights Hospitaller, within northern England. Through documentary evidence—including the 1185 Templar inquest, later Hospitaller surveys, and antiquarian accounts—combined with surviving material culture such as the effigy of Nicholas Stapleton, it is possible to reconstruct both the economic and ecclesiastical significance of the site from the late twelfth to fourteenth centuries.

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The Knights Templar of Penhill… and the Mystery of the Three Tombs

High above Wensleydale, on the wild and wind-swept slopes of Penhill, lie the haunting remains of a forgotten Templar outpost — the Preceptory of Penhill, also known as Temple Dowskar.

Today, all that survives is the broken shell of their chapel.

But within it… lies a mystery that has puzzled historians for generations.

A Hidden Templar House in the North

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