Sinai House (Picture Source: Historic Houses)
At 5.30am on Sunday 25 July 2021, a story broke in the Birmingham Mail under the headline: “Relics including the Holy Grail and lost Ark of the Covenant under Midlands Manor House”. It was eventually picked up by other regional media including Wales Online and the Manchester Evening News. By Tuesday 27 July the story had made the front page of the national Daily Star.
The article, by journalist Mike Lockley, stated that: “Beneath Sinai House – for hundreds of years, an imposing landmark in the brewery town of Burton-upon-Trent – lies the lost treasure of the Knights Templar, perhaps even the Holy Grail itself.”
Lockley was reporting research by “respected historian and anthropologist” David Adkins and, the owner of Sinai House, Kate Murphy. Their theory suggests that Sinai House, which is located approximately 1.7 miles to the west of Burton-upon-Trent (Staffordshire), was a secret location favoured by the Knights Templar. Apparently, it is the final resting place of their fabled treasure – including the Holy Grail.
Knights Templar
The Templars were formed in 1119 by a company of nine knights, headed by Grand Master Hugues de Payens, to protect Christian pilgrims travelling to the Holy Land. They were donated land to the south of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem – hence their formal name of the Order of Solomon’s Temple. The Templars were militant monks who followed a combination of the Rule of St Augustine of Hippo and the canons of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (Read 1999, 91).
The Order became vastly wealthy due to the acquisition of lands across Europe and their astute financial acumen. However, they were eventually removed from Jerusalem by the Ayyubid caliphate in 1244. Further disaster struck, between 1307 and 1314, when they were forcibly disbanded, amidst great acrimony and accusation, by a combination of the Papacy and numerous individual European states (Read 1999, 247-301).
Sinai House
Sinai House was originally owned by the Scobenhal family until they donated the property to nearby Burton Abbey in the early fourteenth century. The monastery used the property as a location for rest and recuperation – which included medicinal blood-letting. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries the estate passed to the Paget family who remained the owners until the early twentieth century (Tringham 2003, 167-170).
The extant house is an early sixteenth century, timber-framed building which was extensively remodelled in the mid-seventeenth and nineteenth centuries (National Heritage List 1038484; Pevsner 1974, 77). However, the surrounding moat may be earlier and it is reputed that cellars, lying below the later house, date to the ownership of the monks.
Adkins & Murphy’s Theory
According to David Adkins and Kate Murphy, Sinai House came into the ownership of nearby Burton Abbey in the early fourteenth century, under mysterious circumstances, just after the Templars were removed from Jerusalem. They claim that the hilltop site was selected by the remaining Templars as a location in which to secretly hide their treasures due to the strong connections of the Payens family to Burton Abbey. They go on to explain that the use of the place-name Sinai began at this point as a direct reference to the Biblical location, which makes it: “the most likely place for the Templar treasure to be.”
They allege that Burton was chosen because the Templars may have found a ready ally in the abbots of Burton who were apparently “notoriously non-conformist and had little allegiance to the Pope or Rome.” The Templars needed such a supporter as “powerful people and foreign governments were understandably keen to acquire the hoard… the Templars knew that an invading force from abroad could never reach the heart of England.” Additionally, Adkins also pointed to the proximity of Needwood Forest which he considered to be “a dark and feared place” that would have further dissuaded potential enemies.
Adkins claims that: “Sinai House sits on a labyrinth of natural tunnels and caves. A geologist once told me that there were caverns as big as Westminster Abbey beneath the house… As such the natural caves and chambers would have naturally drawn the Templars wanting to conceal their valuable hoard.” Mike Lockley subsequently reported that: “In the 1800s, researchers discovered a secret passageway, forced entry but were beaten back by fumes. To this day, the cellar’s stone archway remains bricked up.”
Lockley goes on to explain that after the dissolution of Burton Abbey, in 1539, the site was acquired by the courtier Sir William Paget who “went to great lengths to secure the Burton Abbey estate. Why? And having realised his ambition, why did Sir William smash down the abbey.” Adkins himself suggests that: “They were looking for something” and speculated that the surname Paget is derived from Payens – the name of the first Templar Grand Master: “if Paget was indeed a descendant, he was only around six generations removed from Hughes de Payens. As such, it is highly likely that tales and family myths about the lost treasure being on the Burton Abbey estate had been passed down within his family.”
There is a lot to unpack here, but the following points sum up Adkins and Murphy’s thesis:
- Sinai House was transferred to Burton Abbey in the early fourteenth century because its abbot was anti-establishment and could be entrusted with possession of the treasures of the recently disbanded Knights Templar. The name Sinai became associated with the property due to its Biblical and Templar connections.
- The location was picked because it had ancient connections to Grand Master Payens, it was far from external political enemies, it was protected by the nearby Forest of Needwood and there were many hidden caves or tunnels beneath the site which could be used to hide the treasure.
- Latterly, William Paget, a descendant of Payens, bought the abbey and its lands to try and reclaim the treasures.
Questioning the Templar Connection
Part One: The Transfer of Sinai House
The Sinai House estate, originally known as Shrobnall Park, was owned by the Scobenhal family (Tringham 2003, 167-70). Their donation to Burton Abbey, in the early fourteenth century, was a perfectly normal mediaeval land transaction. Pious landowners sought to curry favour with the church and to atone for their sins through the giving of property in the hope of a reduced amount of time in Purgatory. At the upper end of Staffordshire society this might involve the foundation of a monastery, such as Stone Priory in the 1130s by Geoffrey de Clinton (Taylor & Shaw 2013, 17-18). Elsewhere, an estate in London was granted to Dieulacres Abbey by Everard the Goldsmith during the 1240s (Greenslade & Pugh 1970, 230-35).
Once the Scobenhal estate passed to Burton Abbey it was owned and managed by the Benedictine order of monks. The site was used as a place of recuperation in a manner similar to Finchale Priory by the monks of Durham (Ryder 2001, 16). This would have involved short holidays during which the monks sang a reduced number of masses and partook in medicinal blood-letting.
Although arbitrarily dismissed by Adkins and Murphy, this blood-letting is the original derivation of the place-name Sinai. The house was referred to as the “manor of Seyne” by 1410 and a “sinodum” in 1442. Both phrases come from the Middle English “seyney” which was, taken via the French “saignée”, from the Latin “sanguis” – meaning blood (Tringham 2003, 167-70). The alternative explanation offered by Adkins, which links the Templars and the remote monastery of St Catharine in the Sinai Desert, seems unlikely. The Templars had no particular connection to the monastery which was protected by its own militant Order of St Catherine. Burton Abbey and Sinai House are completely absent from Evelyn Lord’s (Cambridge University) excellent book The Knights Templar in Britain (2004) – this is because neither the Scobenhal family nor the monks of Burton seem to have had any meaningful connection with the Templars.
Part Two: The Location of Sinai House
It is unlikely that the site could have been deliberately selected by the Templars following their disbandment as the Order was essentially broken and discredited. Neither were the abbots of Burton particularly anti-establishment – for example, they were often to be found serving on Papal commissions (Greenslade & Pugh 1970, 199-213). Equally, the assertion that the founding Grand Master, Hugues de Payens, had specific connections to Burton does not seem to be supported. His origins were in the Champagne region of France and he had no descendants (Read 1999, 91). Furthermore, Adkins is quoted as saying that: “shortly after the Templars left Jerusalem the Abbey took personal charge of Sinai House.” However, the Templars were ousted from Jerusalem by the Ayyubid’s in 1244; whereas, the estate was not donated to the abbey until around 1320 – a significant period of time later.
The strategic location of Sinai House can be called into question. The claim that: “the Templars knew that an invading force from abroad could never reach the heart of England” is probably unlikely as it was a combination of the Papacy and individual political states which ended their regime – the enemy was internal. However, external armies did have form for penetrating English borders. In 1069, the Welsh princes Bleddyn and Rhiwallon raided deep into Staffordshire (Darby 1986, 67). In 1216, Louis of France was able to capture both London and Winchester, later fighting a battle as far north as Lincoln (Carpenter 2020, 7-8). In 1319, the Scottish army drove deep into Yorkshire and reached Castleford (Crook 1976, 40).
The tactical nature of the Forest of Needwood may also have been overstated. The area was owned by the Ferrers family, until it passed to the duchy of Lancaster in 1266 and then became a royal forest in the fifteenth century. The region was essentially a managed hunting reserve under a legal code intended to protect the beasts of the chase. It was not dense woodland and contained much open ground interspersed with nucleated settlements and deer parks (Nicholls 1972, 57-76).
The notion that the land beneath Sinai House is riddled with “a labyrinth of natural tunnels and caves”, in which Templar treasures could be concealed, does not align with the underlying geological conditions. The house itself stands upon mid-Pleistocene till and the slopes below are characterised by Mercia Mudstones – neither of which support natural caves and would offer an unstable geology for the creation of artificial tunnels (Source: Edina Digimap geological maps).
No caves or tunnels have been positively identified in the vicinity. However, there are unsubstantiated rumours of a secret passage linking Sinai House to Burton Abbey. The latter is referenced on websites including Magical History Tour, Lichfield Lore and The Local History of Burton upon Trent. Secret passage tales are ubiquitous to every settlement in the land – we have covered several of them on this blog, including stories from Stone, Tintern and Guildford. Such tales are not known for being based upon historical realities. Nothing about the Sinai House rumours seems to indicate the actual existence of hidden tunnels.
As an aside, I confess that I have not been able to find the source of Mike Lockley’s reference to the attempts to break into a secret passage at Sinai House in the 1800s. Please do let me know if it comes to light. However, the detail in the article that: “the cellar’s stone archway remains bricked up” is perhaps not entirely accurate as I was able to find reference to a photograph of the space, published in 1987, and also of a television programme being filmed within the cellar during 1998.
Part Three: The Paget Ownership of Sinai House and Burton Abbey
According to Adkins and Murphy’s theory, the courtier William Paget was keen to own Sinai House because he was a descendant of Hugues de Payens. There are several potential problems with this notion.
Firstly, Adkins states that stories of the Templar treasure could have been easily passed on to Paget as he “was only around six generations removed from Hughes de Payens”. This is numerically unlikely. Research has shown that, in male lines, a generation is approximately 33 years. There were 370 years between the death of Payens and the birth of Paget, making it 11.21 generations rather than six. In order for Adkins’ statement to be correct a generation would have to be extended to 61.66 years – almost double the usual period of time.
Secondly, the proposal that the surname Paget derives from Payens does not seem to be accurate. Paget is a diminutive of the Old French for “page” – a servant. Meanwhile, early references to Payens make it clear that it was the place-name from where Hugues came from – a French settlement near Troyes – rather than a surname in the modern sense. If he had a child, their name would have been referenced according to their own place of birth. The names Payens and Paget are apparently unrelated.
Finally, according to Simon of St Bertin, writing c 1135-37, the Templars were resolved to: “renounce the world, give up personal goods [and] free themselves to pursue chastity” (Nicholson 2010, 26). It would therefore be difficult for Paget to be a descendant of Payens as the latter was a celibate monk who did not have any children.
What cannot be denied is that, in 1546, Sir William Paget did purchase Burton Abbey and Sinai House. However, he did not seem to have any particular interest in the latter beyond the money he could glean from the estate via rents. It was leased out to John Tailor in 1549 and was not regained by the Pagets until 1597. Subsequent documentary references make it clear that the house was continuously let out to various other families throughout the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Tringham 2003, 167-70). The Pagets never occupied Sinai House themselves and seemed to have no particular interest in the location.
The suggestion that there were any ulterior motives behind the Paget acquisition of the property also seems flawed. Lockley’s insinuation that Paget “went to great lengths to secure the Burton Abbey estates” misses the point that this was a perfectly standard purchase for a socially rising man. Similar transactions took place widely across mid-sixteenth century post-Dissolution England. Within Staffordshire itself, the London merchant William Crompton purchased Stone Priory in 1538 (Taylor & Shaw 2013, 19). The same year Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, bought Trentham Priory and sold it to Sir Thomas Pope who then passed it on to Sir James Leveson (Greenslade & Pugh 1970, 255-60). A few miles to the north of Burton-upon-Trent, Tutbury Priory was initially leased to Sir William Bassett and then acquired by Sir William Cavendish in 1552 (Greenslade & Pugh 1970, 331-40).
The sites of former monasteries offered a tremendous potential for the Crown to raise revenue and for its subjects to enhance their property portfolio. This was a regular pattern of behaviour with countless parallels across the country. The new landowners were determined to make their properties habitable and functional for domestic, rather than sacred, uses. At some monasteries, such as Newstead Priory (Nottinghamshire) this involved the removal of most of the church and remodelling of the cloisters as a house for the Byron family. Elsewhere in Nottinghamshire, the Talbot’s did away with all but the former lay brother’s range at Rufford Abbey. Meanwhile, elements of Burton Abbey were retained, including the church of St Modwen, the infirmary and part of the complex was turned into a residence for the Pagets. The reason for demolishing large sections of the monastery probably had nothing to do with the search for lost Templar treasure (which was apparently at Sinai House and not at the abbey anyway) and everything to do with the conversion of the complex into a house.
Conclusions
Adkins has stated that: “Although the evidence may be circumstantial there is enough of it to build a very plausible case.” He then challenged those who might offer a critique of his and Murphy’s theory: “To the detractors I would say, find me another ancient house called Sinai sitting on a labyrinth of tunnels… with connections to the Templars.”
The potential problem is that the evidence does not seem to be just circumstantial – it is possibly very fragile and does not add up to a credible case. The reason that the building was called Sinai House is not related to the Bible or the Templars and it is not located above a network of subterranean passages. The theory is based on the belief that the Templars had a treasure which they were determined to hide. The case is built on this foundation and the evidence, such as it is, has been made to fit the belief.
However, there is very little evidence that the Templars did have a large, centralised cache of portable treasure which they hid when disbanded. The headline of the article suggests that they may have even been harbouring the Holy Grail itself. During the contemporary mediaeval moment, Templars do appear as incidental characters in Wulfram von Essenbach’s twelfth century mystical poetry relating to the Grail myth. However, they are not principal characters and were not entrusted with its keeping. There was not even a contemporary fictional tradition, let alone documented history, which specifically linked the organisation to the Grail.
The notion that the Templars had esoteric wisdom and artefacts, gained from their association with Solomon’s Temple, was introduced by German Freemasons in the 1760s. The tradition was invented to justify and legitimise their own activities as the apparent successors of Templar knowledge. This narrative later came to prominence due to criticisms levelled by the historian Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall in the 1810s. By the later part of the century the popular connection between the Templars and esoterica, including the Grail, had become established. This undercurrent of belief eventually went mainstream in 1983 with the publication of Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln’s The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. This book later formed the basis for Dan Brown’s novel The Da Vinci Code.
Since the release of these bestsellers, the Templar historian Helen Nicholson (Cardiff University) has noted that: “Many ‘discoveries’ about the Templars have followed, many of which are little more than fantasy, with less basis in actual historical events than most historical novels” (Nicholson 2010, 268-72)
References
Carpenter, D., 2020, Henry III. Yale University Press. New Haven and London.
Crook, D., 1976, ‘Clipstone Park and Peel’ in Transactions of the Thoroton Society of Nottinghamshire Volume 80
Darby, H. C., 1986, ‘The Marches of Wales in 1086’ in Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers Volume 11
Greenslade, M. W. & Pugh, R. B., 1970, A History of the County of Stafford: Volume 3. Victoria County History. London.
Lord, E., 2004, The Knights Templar in Britain. Routledge. London.
Nicholls, P. H., 1972, ‘On the Evolution of a Forest Landscape’ in Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers Number 56
Nicholson, H., 2010, The Knights Templar. Robinson. London.
Pevsner, N., 1974, The Buildings of England: Staffordshire. Penguin. London.
Read, P. P., 1999 (2001 edition), The Templars. Phoenix. London.
Ryder, P., 2001, Finchale Priory. English Heritage. Swindon.
Taylor, D. & Shaw, M., 2013, Stone: Historic Character Assessment. Unpublished archaeological survey. Staffordshire County Council.
Tringham, N. J., 2003, A History of the County of Stafford: Volume 9, Burton-Upon-Trent. Victoria County History. London.
About the author
James Wright is an award-winning buildings archaeologist who runs Triskele Heritage. He has two decades professional experience of ferreting around in people’s cellars, hunting through their attics and digging up their gardens. He hopes to find meaningful truths about how ordinary and extraordinary folk lived their lives in the mediaeval period.
He welcomes contact through Twitter or email.
The Mediaeval Mythbusting Blog blog is the basis of a forthcoming book – Historic Building Mythbusting – Uncovering Folklore, History and Archaeology which will be released via The History Press on 6 June 2024. More information can be found here:
