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Photographing Temple Church, London - Part Two
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More on that photo shoot here:
Andy Marshall
“It’s moments like these that make you think places have a memory all of their own. It’s hardly a theory, more a feeling born of so long spent outside, but what if landscapes somehow become repositories of personal and collective memory? What if traces are imprinted or stored in an imperceptible or intangible way, and the land itself retains the culture of a place? Then what if when a certain set of stimuli is triggered, a kind of molecular union occurs between that place and a person whereby memories and experiences are passed on like the sting of a nettle?”
Rob Cowen, Common Ground.
Longing
The 2014 film Interstellar is having a moment again. Clips of Hans Zimmer’s organ score are circulating online; younger audiences are discovering the film for the first time, and those who saw it a decade ago are returning to it with renewed perception. Perhaps it’s because its vision of a planet in crisis feels less like science fiction now. Or perhaps it’s that, in the hollowness of our post-Covid world, the film reminds us of a kind of homesickness: for each other, and for the world we once inhabited. We are, in many ways, still hollowed out. Our communal selves have become secondary to the individual. And yet in the darker corners of this new century, Interstellar rises again — a cultural bloom in the desert — reminding us to look up, to think wider, to stretch through our imagined limitations.
It’s fitting that much of its music — those surging chords of hope and despair — was recorded here in Temple Church, London. The building itself seems to breathe with the same questions that haunt the film: Where do we belong? What keeps us bound together across time and distance? And what hidden forces still connect us, even when we think we are alone?
In Interstellar, Earth is failing — a planet turning to dust. A pilot named Cooper leaves his family behind in a desperate attempt to find a new home among the stars. The film’s emotional heart lies in the tiny watch left behind for his daughter, Murph — its second hand later beginning to pulse in Morse code, carrying across time the data that will save humanity. It is an extraordinary symbol: love made manifest through the vibration of time itself. For me, that moment is more than a keyframe in a fantasy film — it’s a real expression of invisible communion. An idea, born of human play and creativity, that releases the mind into the unexpected realms of freedom — to think of the impossible, to hope and, perhaps, in communion with others, to solve the seemingly irredeemable challenges we face.
Since Interstellar first appeared, our understanding of the universe has continued to unfold. Physicists speak now of quantum entanglement — the strange, beautiful notion that two particles, once linked, remain mysteriously connected no matter how far apart they travel. Touch one, and the other trembles in response. It’s a scientific idea that feels almost like poetry: that distance doesn’t always sever relationship, that connections forged in one place can reverberate in another.
There’s a subtle undertone that runs through Interstellar that reveals itself as a profound, human longing: a slow-burning ache that stretches across time and distance. Yet perhaps that longing is not only for what has been lost — perhaps it’s also a felt sense of wanting to resolve. A yearning to move beyond the vagaries of the present, to make a harmonious home of this earth once again. A wish to be free from the zombie half-sleep of our distracted age, to think and dream collectively — to imagine the unimaginable and to shape a kinder future for us and for our planet.
Physicists might call it gravity or entanglement, but in human terms it’s the architecture of yearning — the embodied act of longing for what feels just out of reach. Our churches, too, are built around that same impulse. Their spires rise like beacons into the unknown, their stones hold the weight of memory. Arches and vaults reach beyond what humans might think possible. In their intricate forms and layered meanings, they remind us that even the unattainable can sometimes be touched. Step inside, and that longing becomes almost tangible.
And yet, for all its grandeur, Temple Church reminds us that this longing isn’t abstract or unreachable — it lives here, among us. Beneath the ribs of the vaulting, the ache of the infinite settles into the ordinary. It’s found in the scrape of a chair on the floor before a concert, in the smell of polish and candlewax, in the low hum of conversation over tea and biscuits after evensong. These small rituals tether the cosmic to the communal. They show that transcendence doesn’t always come in cymbal bursts of revelation, but in commonplace continuities — people gathered, stories shared, lives witnessed. Here, amid the play of shadow and light, Interstellar’s vast yearning collapses into something recognisably human: the need to belong, to be understood, to keep returning to a place that asks nothing of us but to arrive.
It’s impossible to think that the heritage of Temple Church — its shape, its audible form, the Harrison & Harrison organ that gives voice to Zimmer’s score — hasn’t left traces within the emotional intensity and message of the film itself. As if the sound of those pipes, resonating within this ancient geometry, became part of Interstellar’s own entangled DNA — a vibration that travels outward, connecting art, architecture, and audience in one continuous act of longing.
For me, churches like Temple are part of a vast mycorrhizal network of culture — hidden roots beneath the soil of our collective imagination. With all the material of our lives pinned down — our movements, our actions, our daily routines tracked and recorded — it’s in the unseen parts of us that hope now lies. And the icons capable of communicating across that unseen network are, for me, films like Interstellar and places like Temple Church.
In times of crisis, these roots send up unexpected shoots of creativity and care: stories, films, artworks, acts of preservation. Cultural elements that have lain fallow for years suddenly bloom in the desert to inspire us once more.
Like the fungal threads beneath a forest, they pass on nutrients of memory and meaning, keeping the larger organism — humanity — alive.
In an age when public space grows ever more transactional, our churches remain among the last places where we can simply be. They stand open to all faiths and none, asking nothing of us — no declaration of belief — only a willingness to pause. And as someone who falls tentatively into the ‘none’ category, I find that in that pause lies their true value: as philosophical compasses quietly orienting us toward what matters. They remind us that we are part of something continuous — that meaning can be both cosmic and local, infinite and domestic. Like the message pulsing through Interstellar’s deep space, these buildings still speak across time, urging us to stay connected, to listen, and to keep finding our way home.
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Temple Church, London
Go and visit Temple Church. Go and listen to the organ. And if you can’t get out and about, go and listen to the Interstellar soundtrack and envision place through music. We are so lucky to have places like Temple Church to inspire us — and so lucky to live in a country where so many places like this are close at hand.
At the recent Great Expectations conference at the V&A, it was said that a huge proportion of churches are now under threat of redundancy — casualties of an increasingly uncaring age. Yet the hope of their survival still lies within reach. It relies upon ordinary people, of all faiths and none, to recognise their importance — not only for the stories they hold of our past, but for how they can shape our future.
For these are not simply historic structures, but places with the undeniable timbre of the cosmos — resonant, living conduits that help us to hope, to imagine, and to become whole again.
Pure Scroll
Here are a some of my photographs from Temple Church — moments where light, sound, and structure align in that frequency of longing and renewal.
The Exterior
Interior
The interior of Temple Church is divided into two main parts: the circular nave and the chancel. The Round, built by the Knights Templar in the 12th century, echoes the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. The later C13th chancel extends eastward, forming a graceful Gothic choir used for worship and music.
The Round Nave
The Chancel
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I'm giving to the next person to sign up for membership a copy of the definitive book on Temple Church: The Temple Church in London - History, Architecture, Art. To the second person I'm giving away my original 'Interstellar' sketch made for this digest.
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Mixed media on A6 Khadi handmade cotton rag 320gsm. Signed on the rear:
With the special permission, I was able to stay over in Woody at Inner Temple.
Andy Marshall
Harriet Sherwood
☝️See the story behind the above photograph here.
I mentioned that places like Temple Church are part of a vast mycorrhizal network of culture, sending up unexpected shoots in stories, films, artworks and acts of preservation. If you would like to see what this looks like in reality, read about the Friends of Friendless Churches work at saving the church at Llangua.
Whilst at the re-opening ceremony, I was profoundly struck by some words by Directore, Rachel Morley:
‘Mending old churches is a creative collaboration between people separated by centuries – people who will never meet but who share a purpose.’
And I might extend Rachel's words to also bring in those who take part in organ recitals, charity teas, exhibitions, and who simply visit such places — each act, however small, part of a living tapestry of care, creativity, and continuity that keeps these buildings alive.
Read about Llangua here:
Andy Marshall
For Members - A video fly through of the chancel and nave at Temple Church
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For Members - Temple Church nave and chancel in glorious VR
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Kind words from a subscriber:
Andy your work is becoming wonderful, remarkable. A so-called breakdown has been milled into its constituent parts, becoming profound construction: through perception, architecture, the lens and the pen. In your Repton crypt essay a deep description of our social anxiety - and our reason to be....
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Andy Marshall
Rob Rinder said at the Great Expectations Conference (run by the National Churches Trust) said this week:
“The story of Britain, at the moment, tragically, is being hijacked, perhaps by some people who claim to speak for its soul while doing everything to hollow it out.
Many of those will shout about patriotism, but seem to have no real enduring love for the places where ordinary decency still lives and breathes. If you want to see the real British values at work … go to my local church on a rainy Tuesday or Wednesday night. There you’ll find people of every colour, every faith, every accent, quietly holding our country together … To save these buildings is to save something fundamental about Britain itself, the Britain that still believes in fairness, hospitality and humour … the Britain that looks after one another quietly.”
I sent Rob an example of such unassuming and unquestioning care that I came across at Easington in Yorkshire where the community erected a tent (for warmth) inside the chancel and also offered free food and tins. More here:
Andy Marshall
Thank You!
Photographs and words by Andy Marshall (unless otherwise stated). Most photographs are taken with Iphone 16 Pro and DJI Mini 3 Pro.
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