The manor of Cressing was granted to the Knights Templar in 1136 by
Matilda of Boulogne, the wife of
King Stephen. It is close to the main road between
London and
Colchester and the road between Witham and Braintree. The Preceptory of Cressing was therefore one of the very earliest Templar estates in England, It received further grants soon after its founding in the form of property at
Witham sometime between 1138 and 1148, and was placed first in a detailed list of Templar holdings in 1185. It was the largest of their estates in Essex. Later,
King John confirmed to the Templars at Cressing the land of
Berecholt on 14 July 1199, and the land of Newland on 8 June 1214, as well as a market on Thursdays and a three-day-long fair at the
feast of the Decollation of St. John the Baptist at the new town of Wulnesforde in the parish of Witham. Later, sometime before his death in 1255, the Templar Peter de Rossa granted over 100 acres of the manor of
Rivenhall to Cressing, a parish in which he was parson and lord. The original 1400-acre site was a considerable agricultural enterprise, and was led by a Templar
Preceptor, accompanied by two or three knights or sergeants, together with a chaplain, a bailiff and numerous household servants overseeing around 160 tenant farmers. The manor had a mansion house, bakehouse, brewery, dairy, granary, smithy, gardens, a
dovecote, a watermill, and a windmill, with a chapel and associated cemetery dedicated to
St Mary. The proceeds from the Cressing Temple were all sent to fund Templar activities in the
Crusader states in the Middle East. During the reign of
King Edward II the Templar order was
suppressed in England. The pope had issued a bull
Pastoralis praeeminentiae to all Christian monarchs. It ordered the arrest of all Knights Templar and the seizure of their properties on behalf of the church. == The Knights Hospitaller and Cressing ==