Knights Templar School
Knights Templar School is a co-educational secondary school with academy status located in the market town of Baldock in North Hertfordshire, England. In a February 2006 Ofsted report, the school was described as "outstanding", one of only eight secondary schools in Hertfordshire to be so recognised. It retained its "outstanding" status following a further Ofsted inspection in February 2009. The Knights Templar School gained academy status on 1 April 2011. Following an Ofsted inspection in October 2012 the school was categorised as "good" against a newer, far more demanding Inspection framework.
Sussex in the High Middle Ages
Sussex had strong links with the military orders of the Knights Templar and the Knights Hospitaller. Founded in 1119, the Knights Templar established centres in Sussex including a local headquarters, or preceptory, at Shipley from around 1125, with other centres at Sompting from 1154 and at the port of Shoreham by 1170. The church at Shipley is the earliest surviving church of the Templars in England and dates from the 1130s. The Hospitallers established a centre at Poling and another at Shoreham in 1190. Various Sussex magnates went on crusade including Philip de Braose, lord of Bramber, went on crusade probably in 1128. William de Warenne III, lord of the rape of Lewes, made annual gifts from his estate at Lewes to the knights Templar and around 1146 went on crusade where he was killed in battle in 1148.