Study Day: Courtauld Tomb Raiders visit to the Temple Church, 30 October 2017

The Courtauld’s medieval research group with a special interest in funerary monuments, Tomb Raiders, invite all to a visit to the Temple Church just off the Strand on the morning of the 30th October. The student rate will be £2. The church is open 11-1, so once everyone has arrived we shall gather about 11:15 in the Round nave to tour the church together.

The day will be most generously lead by Catherine Hundley, Kress Fellow at the Warburg, who is writing her dissertation on twelfth-century Round Churches.

The church, built for the order of the Knights Templar and now hidden away in the Inner Temple betwen the Strand and the Thames, was built in two stages, the mid-twelfth century and early thirteenth, resulting in two very important examples of English Gothic architecture. It is also famous for its array of knightly monuments. Since the supression of the Templar order in the fourteenth century, the church has gone through much change and restoration, not least the terrible incendiary bombs of 1941, all which add to its remarkable history. The morning will be geared towards open discussion, but I would be happy if anyone would like to volunteer to give introductions to the choir, the effigies or the nineteenth-century embellishment and post-war reconstruction.

Booking is not essential but please do email me at james.cameron@courtauld.ac.uk if you intend to come or would like to give an introduction to any feature. Also numbers are not limited so please feel free to invite anyone who you think may be interested.

Afterwards we shall return to the Courtauld for lunch in the cafe. At 3pm is the Student Work in Progress round-table seminar in the Research Forum. For more information on the latter, please contact Anna.Koopstra@courtauld.ac.uk.