The Headless Templar of Liliová Street

Beside St Lawrence’s Church in Liliová Street, once belonging to the Knights Templar, the headless ghost of a Templar knight appears every Friday at midnight. Dressed in his order’s robe, he rides a horse whose nostrils spit fire. He holds his head beside the saddle and rides through Liliová Street. At one o’clock the apparition disappears. The monastery and Church of St Lawrence, known as In Jerusalem, belonged to the Templars in the thirteenth century. The church was later renamed St Anne’s. In the eighteenth century it was deconsecrated and a multi-storey printing works installed in its lofty interior. Images of thirty-six Templar symbols reportedly still survived in its five northern windows in the early twentieth century; a faithful copy is known. Today no trace of them remains.