The Temple of Apollo is thought to have been where Westminster Abbey is now and there is no doubt that the Abbey was built on an already sacred site.

   Temple of Apollo

Considering the importance of religion it may seem odd, but fashion, in its broadest sense, seems to have influenced on which temples were built and when and who they were dedicated to. Because of this it is possible to get a fair idea of what these temples should look like from comparing them with other known examples.

  Temple of Apollo

Most historians regard Geoffrey of Monmouth’s history as totally made up. If this is the case then he was exceptionally lucky with his choice of temples as they fit very neatly time wise with other known examples.

If they did exist, it is difficult to see how they could be radically different from the known examples and they would have been unmistakably classical, virtually indistinguishable from Roman buildings.

  Temple of Apollo

The legend of King Bladud attests to the Temple of Apollo being a substantial building, certainly not thatch and mud, as when he was experimenting with man-powered-flight he crashed on it, dashing himself to pieces.

It is not clear where in London the Temple of Concord was supposed to be, but this too was a popular type of temple at this time.

There was a third classical temple in London, the Temple of Diana. This was discovered by Wren while digging the foundations for his St Paul’s Cathedral. Wren thought it Roman but there is an outside possibility that it was in fact earlier, as Prince Brutus was supposed to have had a vision of the Goddess Diana during a dream at a Temple of Diana he had found on an uninhabited island. In the dream, she told him to settle in Britain and it is precisely the type of temple that he would have built.

If it was Roman then it is strong evidence that the Romans did know about the legend of Brutus and therefore could hardly have founded London.

However, if it had been built by Brutus then it would have been a much more humble affair. This image is of an eighth or ninth century BC temple of Diana in Sicily, not nearly as grand but apart from the early date actually much more believable.

In the old records of St Paul’s cathedral, some adjacent buildings were known as ‘Camera Dianae’ - chambers or rooms of Diana and this would be an excellent description of these early temples.