Temple Church

The Temple Church, built by the Knights Templar and consecrated in 1185, stands as a stark, circular edifice of Caen stone just off Fleet Street on Inner Temple Lane in London. Its architecture is deliberately pagan in form: a perfectly round sanctuary that ignores the traditional Christian cruciform layout, built instead to honor the sun. The church once served as the epicenter of all Templar and Priory activities in the United Kingdom, its name chosen in honor of Solomon's Temple, from which the Knights Templar extracted both their title and the Sangreal documents that gave them influence in Rome. The interior is austere and fortress-like, with walls unusually robust for a place of worship, reflecting the Templars' dual nature as a religio-military society. The church also functioned as a bank, where nobles could deposit gold and withdraw it from any other Temple Church across Europe, making the Templars the inventors of modern banking.

The Ten Tombs and the Misleading Clue

Inside the circular chamber, ten life-sized stone effigies of knights lie prone on the floor, carved in full armor with shields and swords, giving the impression of warriors frozen in sleep. The poem's first line—"In London lies a knight a Pope interred"—initially leads Langdon, Sophie, and Teabing to believe this is the site of the knight's tomb they seek. However, the altar boy reveals that these are not tombs but effigies; no bodies lie beneath them, a fact uncovered during the 1950 renovation. The tenth tomb is a sealed stone casket rather than an open effigy, adding to the mystery but ultimately proving a dead end. The group's search for a missing orb on the tombs yields nothing, and they realize the poem points elsewhere.

The Confrontation and the True Tomb

While the group is inside the church, Rémy Legaludec and Silas arrive to steal the keystone. Rémy, having freed Silas from his bonds, enters the church and takes Teabing hostage at gunpoint, forcing Langdon to hand over the cryptex. The monk and his accomplice then flee with the keystone and Teabing, leaving Langdon and Sophie to escape through the tube station. The Temple Church thus serves as a pivotal location where the protagonists' initial interpretation of the poem fails, the keystone is lost, and the true identity of the knight—Sir Isaac Newton, buried in Westminster Abbey—remains undiscovered until later. The church's role is ultimately one of misdirection, a decoy that delays the quest and leads to a dangerous confrontation.