Temple Church, Inner Temple Lane, EC4

This is the church of Inner and Middle Temple, two of England’s four ancient societies of lawyers, the Inns of Court. It was consecrated in 1185 as the chapel serving the London headquarters of the Knights Templar, and took its name from them. The Templars were soldier monks, an order was founded in Jerusalem in a building on the site of King Solomon's temple. Their mission was to protect pilgrims travelling to and from the Holy Land. The Templars' churches were always built to a circular design to remind them of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, a round, domed building raised over the site of the sepulchre where Jesus was buried.

Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) and Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou) search among the effigies here in Ron Howard’s film of The Da Vinci Code.

Trivia: the church was severely damaged by fire during air raids in 1941, but by 1958 had been restored.

Temple Church

The Da Vinci Code (2006, dir: Ron Howard)