Templecombe Preceptory (or Combe Templariorum) was established in 1185 in Templecombe

Templecombe

Templecombe is a village in Somerset, England, situated on the A357 road five miles south of Wincanton, twelve miles east of Yeovil, and 30 miles west of Salisbury. The village has a population of 1,506...

, Somerset

Somerset

The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...

, England.

One of the manors within the parish was held by Earl Leofwine

Leofwine Godwinson

Leofwine Godwinson was a younger brother of Harold II of England, the fifth son of Earl Godwin.When the Godwin family was exiled from England in 1051 he went with Harold to Ireland...

 who gave it to Bishop Odo of Bayeux after the Norman Conquest. It was his descendant Serlo FitzOdo who granted it to the Knights Templar

Knights Templar

The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon , commonly known as the Knights Templar, the Order of the Temple or simply as Templars, were among the most famous of the Western Christian military orders...

 who established a preceptory in the village in 1185. After they were suppressed following the 1307 order by Pope Clement IV

Pope Clement IV

Pope Clement IV , born Gui Faucoi called in later life le Gros , was elected Pope February 5, 1265, in a conclave held at Perugia that took four months, while cardinals argued over whether to call in Charles of Anjou, the youngest brother of Louis IX of France...

, it was granted to the Knights of St John who held it until the dissolution of the monasteries

Dissolution of the Monasteries

The Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland; appropriated their...

.

An attempt to discover 'the village of the templars' was made by the Time Team

Time Team

Time Team is a British television series which has been aired on Channel 4 since 1994. Created by television producer Tim Taylor and presented by actor Tony Robinson, each episode features a team of specialists carrying out an archaeological dig over a period of three days, with Robinson explaining...

television programme.