Rothley Temple (now Rothley Court Hotel)

Elizabethan‑style alterations including the entrance porch and, on the south front, the Tuscan loggia and big bay‑windowed addition (the billiard room) with a brick chimney dated 1895, in whimsical imitation of the 18th century one. For Mr. Frederick Merttens. Birthplace of Lord Macaulay,

The Knights Templar were granted lands here in 1203. The preceptory probably dates from 1231, when Henry II gave them the manor. It passed to the Knights Hospitaller after the suppression of the Templars in 1312. In 1536 Humphrey Babington leased the estate. It was owned by the Babingtons (probably the only estate they retained after the Babington plot) from 1565 until 1845 They made the Templars' hall (possibly part of a manor house existing in 1231) into a house. The Merttens, who bought it in 1893, made further additions and restored the chapel, the w end of which had been used as service rooms.

Few Templars' chapels survive intact (Temple Church, London; Duxford, Cambs; Temple Balsall, Warwicks; Ribston, West Yorkshire). The Rothley chapel is one of the best preserved. The date must be mid‑13th century. It is almost free‑standing, attached to the house on the s (cf. Ribston) by a two‑storey link with a vaulted vestibule. Long and high, with tall lancet windows, each framed inside by a  roll moulding and linked by another continuous one at sill level. E window with flanking shafts and nook‑shafts: Perp tracery. Trefoiled pointed piscina with shafts. Hybrid‑queen-post roof with at least some old timbers. The entrance is from the vestibule to the south-west. A quadripartite vault with single‑chamfered ribs on corbels supports an upper storey. The doorway into the chapel had shafts (gone) and an arch with a filleted moulding. The east doorway into the vestibule identical outside but much restored. Small lancet to the second storey. Inside a defaced effigy, originally with an ogee canopy above it. The outline of the blocked s doorway into the Templars' hall can still be traced

The Hall formed part of a manorial establishment, like that of Bisham Abbey, Berkshire, rather than a monastic one. Although the Templars adhered to the Cistercian order, their households, of only one or two Knights, stewards, chaplains, squires, and pages, seem to have been composed on secular lines. The hall now forms the north wing of an H‑shaped house. Of its medieval origin only the north-east and south-east buttresses and renewed lancets on the north side are discernible. Five‑bay centre and three‑bay gabled wings apparently late 16th or early 17th century; the sashes and the dormers with alternating pediments date from an 18th century remodelling. The south-east gable and chimney, rebuilt in brick, are dated 1742 in vitrified headers. Elizabethan‑style alterations of 1894‑5 by John Ely of Manchester include the entrance porch and, on the south front, the Tuscan loggia and big bay‑windowed addition (the billiard room) with a brick chimney dated 1895, in whimsical imitation of the 18th century one.

Inside, one medieval doorway in the N wing from the hall (now featureless and divided into two storeys) to the chapel vestibule (see above). The rest of the ground floor with heavy Jacobethan woodwork of I894‑5. Dividing the large entrance hall from the staircase a stone Tuscan colonnade (possibly 16th or 17th century). In the south wing a large fireplace, which suggests the position of the kitchen. In two first‑floor rooms at this end, re‑used wainscoting of c.1700; one room with pilasters flanking the fireplace, the other with a decorated overmantel. Other bedrooms in late 19th century classical taste. Behind the chapel the domestic‑style service-wing of 1894‑5 To the north-west, walled gardens in the same Gothic style as the gatepiers and entrance lodge. Eighteenth century landscape park.

Reference : Pevsner: Leicestershire & Rutland