Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Baldock

The Church of St Mary the Virgin is the parish church of Baldock, a historic market town in north Hertfordshire — and a church with a remarkable origin, for it was founded by the Knights Templar, the famous warrior-monks of the Crusades. The Templars built the original church here around 1150, and after their suppression it passed to the Knights Hospitaller, who largely rebuilt it in the fourteenth century. A Grade I listed building, St Mary's is a fine medieval church at the heart of a town that the Templars themselves created, and whose very name is said to echo the great city of the East.

The story of the church is bound up with that of the town. Baldock was founded by the Knights Templar in the twelfth century, on land in Hertfordshire, and tradition holds that the Templars — who had their headquarters in the Holy Land — named their new town after Baghdad, the great city of the Islamic world, the medieval English form of which was "Baldac". On land given to them by Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Pembroke, the Templars built a church around 1150, parts of which survive at the east end of the chancel. The church and its patronage remained in the hands of the Templars until their order was suppressed in 1308, after which the church and the manor of Baldock were granted to the Knights Hospitaller — the rival order of the Knights of St John. It was the Hospitallers who, around 1330, greatly expanded and rebuilt the church, giving it much of its present form in the elegant Decorated Gothic style of the age.

The patronage of the church passed through many hands over the centuries. In 1359 it was claimed by King Edward III, and the Crown continued to present its vicars for centuries; the patronage later passed to the Lord Chancellor, then to the Bishop of Rochester, and in 1877 to the Bishop of St Albans, and since 1902 it has been exercised by the bishop and the Marquess of Salisbury in turn. In the late medieval period the religious life of the town was further enriched by the Fraternity, or Guild, of Jesus, founded at St Mary's in 1459 — one of the lay religious guilds that flourished in the towns of late medieval England.

The church itself is a handsome and spacious medieval building, with a tower and spire that form a landmark over the town, and a fine interior preserving medieval and later furnishings, including a medieval rood screen and other treasures. As the church of a planned medieval market town, built on a generous scale, it reflects the prosperity that Baldock enjoyed on the Great North Road and at the crossing of ancient routes.

Today St Mary the Virgin continues as an active Anglican parish church in the Diocese of St Albans, the parish church of Baldock, at the centre of the town. Its Templar and Hospitaller origins, its medieval architecture and its long history make it one of the most interesting churches in Hertfordshire, a building that carries the memory of the Crusading orders into the present day.

The church stands in the centre of the market town of Baldock, in north Hertfordshire, near the point where the ancient Icknield Way crosses the Great North Road. The historic town, with its Georgian streets and old coaching inns, lies all around, along with the neighbouring towns of Letchworth Garden City — the world's first garden city — and Hitchin, the chalk hills of the Chilterns, the prehistoric Icknield Way, and the wider Hertfordshire countryside, with the cathedral city of St Albans within easy reach.

From the founding of the town and the building of the church by the Knights Templar around 1150, through the rebuilding by the Knights Hospitaller in about 1330, the medieval Guild of Jesus, and the long succession of its patrons, the Church of St Mary the Virgin gathers more than eight centuries of history into one building. A Grade I listed church founded by the Crusading orders in a town said to be named after Baghdad, it remains the living parish church of Baldock — a medieval treasure at the heart of a Templar town.