Hidden away behind the picturesque cottages in Church Street at West Liss lies the little church of St. Peter. It was the parish church before the railway came and the new village grew up around the station and the new church of St. Mary was built. It dates from the late 13th century, and hard against the south wall of the chancel, half hidden in the grass, lie some very old flat tombstones, at two of them appearing to bear the remains of a Cross.

According to Mrs Bashford’s booklet, All About Lyss, published in 1922, and repeated in several subsequent publications, they mark the graves of crusaders, or Knights Templar.

Further evidence apparently bears out this fact. The village inn is called The Spread Eagle, which was the device used by the Emperors of the East, and another local inn is actually named The Temple. Furthermore, it is known that the Knights Templars held the Manor at Temple Sotherington, now known simply as Temple, near Blackmoor.

Who, then, were the Knights Templar? They were a monastic order of knights founded in 1113 A.D. to protect pilgrims along the route from Europe to the Holy Land at the time of the Crusades. They took a vow of poverty, which was rare among knights who had to supply themselves with a horse, armour and weapons. Indeed, their seal showed two knights on one horse, an attempt to show how poor they were, though it may also allude to their duality as monks and soldiers. They adopted the white habit of the Cistercians, emblazoning a red cross upon it, and not withstanding the austerity of monastic rule, recruits flocked to the new order. Naturally, these humble beginnings gradually changed, and the Templars regularly transmitted money from Europe to Palestine, gradually developing an efficient banking system, and despite their vows of poverty, they gradually amassed great wealth through gifts from grateful benefactors.

The order met an ignominious end. The secrecy of its rites of initiation had long caused suspicion on the part of the church in Rome and the state in France, and the Templars became the victim of monstrous accusations of sacrilege. The order was wound up, amid torture and execution, in 1312, yet some of its ideals remain alive in freemasonry today.

So exactly who is it that lies under the stone tombs at Liss? The outlines of the Cross could easily be a sword, for Templar’s tombs traditionally contained no words of identification, just a trusty sword, in the shape of a cross. There is a rectangular stone tomb in London’s Temple Church bearing the impression of a sword uncannily like one at Liss.

Yet Colin Dring, Chairman of the Liss Area Historical Society, is sceptical. Firstly, he says the Spread Eagle is a relatively modern name for the village inn, which was formerly known as The Waggonners. Similarly the Temple Inn at Liss Forest dates only from the mid-nineteenth century. The name derives from its first landlord, Solomon Hounsome, when it was affectionately known as Solomon’s Temple. And many mediaeval graves, he rightly points out, bear the sign of the Cross. So the mystery remains. Pat White, the Society’s Archivist, thinks that the tombs, situated so close to the church itself, may well mark the resting place of mediaeval knights living in the district, but says there is no real evidence to suggest that they were ever Crusaders..

Tom Muckley, June 2005

This article was originally published by the Petersfield Post

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