The accountancy firm that looks after children’s entertainers the Wiggles is not an obvious place to search for the Holy Grail, but that’s where the trail led last night. It started with a simple quest - what on earth is a large advertisment headlined “The Ancient & Noble Order of The Knights Templar” doing in the Daily Telegraph? - and it led your intrepid investigator to the wilds of west London and then all the way back to the 12th century.

It was around 1118 when the order of the Knights Templar was founded in the Holy Land by Hughes de Payens and eight other French knights to protect pilgrims and defend Jerusalem, which had been captured by the Crusaders in 1099. Over almost two centuries, the order grew into one of the most rich and powerful institutions of the era. It all came crashing down when the Pope burnt the Templars’ last grand master at the stake in Paris in 1314. The order seemed to have disappeared - until yesterday, when this tantalising advertisement appeared.

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