STROOD KNIGHT ROAD TQ 76 NW 2/278 Temple Manor 24.10.50 I Hall of the Knights' Templars, later a farmhouse and now an Ancient Monument in the custodianship of English Heritage. Storeyed hall of the Templars; early C13. On the suppression of the Order it passed (technically) to the Knight Hospitallers, thence to the Countess of Pembroke who granted it in 1342 to her nunnery at Denny: building from the monastic period now survives underground as archaeological remains to the N. After the Reformation it passed (ultimately) to the Blake family who added 2 storeyed brick ends to the older hall in the second and third quarters of the C17. The hall is ragstone and flint rubble; western and eastern extensions in brick; Kent-tile roofs, that to the hall and western extension continuous. The early C13 building is a 1st floor hall plan. The 1st floor hall was originally divided into a high-status room to the W adorned with wall arcade to either side, and a more simply treated room to the E. Single lancets light the side wall, triple lancets the W (and probably, originally, the E). The stack is a C17 insertion. The undercroft is also of high quality, with 3 bays of quadrapartite ribbed vaults with squared chalk infill. It is lit by smaller side lancets. Access to the upper floor was by means of an external stair (reconstructed c.1950) through a doorway of one order with an inner roll moulding and 2 subsidiary fillets. Western extension, 3 storeys, lit mainly by principal windows on the W (6 lights to ground and 1st floor, 3 lights to attic), and served by a stair and entrance turret to the N. Eastern extension has different moulding details to the W end, with gazebo-like upper window and original wooden modillion cornices. Roof throughout C17 and later. Note: This building was restored by the Ministry of Works in the early 1950s. A full and authoritative description (from which the above summary is derived) is S Rigold, Temple Manor CHMSO, 1962). Listing NGR: TQ7320768450