One finds the ruins of old churches and abbeys strewn across the English countryside as Henry VIII and the Cromwellians took seriously their charge to destroy these bastions of Popish Catholicism. Approaching on foot along our way from the train station to the Cathedral, we assumed Temple Church in Bristol was yet another to have suffered at their hands. Once up close, however, and reading the explanatory signs, we discovered that Temple Church was instead destroyed in the bombing of Britain by Hitler's forces in World War II. It stands today, still somehow beautiful in this diminished state, as a sad but noble reminder of yet another sad and devastating time.
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