Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou in The Da Vinci Code. (Courtesy Columbia Pictures)

The neatly-pressed administrator just points to the back of the stately honeycomb-colored building where effigies of knights lay atop its stone cold floor before resuming his counting of coins.

Temple Church, one of the oldest in London and the city’s only round church, plays a leading role in the Dan Brown thriller - and the film adaptation – The Da Vince Code and, like so many other places in France, England and Scotland mentioned in the novel, has become a favorite gathering spot for the book’s many fans.

In the book, the central characters, American professor Robert Langdon (to be played by Tom Hanks in the movie) and French policewoman Sophie Nuveau (Audrey Tautou) find their way to Temple Church in search of another clue to breaking The Da Vinci Code. What happens to them there is too crucial to the plot to give it away here but suffice to say, it’s hair-raising stuff.

Back at Temple Church on a rainy February day, the studious-looking Nicholson frowns at the suggestion the book has put his church on the tourist map.

Knights at rest in Temple Church. (Marc Atchison/ITD)

“Tourists have been coming here long before the book mentioned it,” says Nicholson. “Its connection to Templar history has always made it a favorite.”

Temple Church indeed holds a prominent place among London’s historic treasures. The handsome 12th century church was consecrated in 1185. Later, it became the London headquarters of the Knights Templar, soldier monks who amassed great wealth and treasures through the ages and, as author Brown would have us believe, were the guardians of the Holy Grail, the central piece of his puzzling book.

Effigies on the floor of the round church commemorate patrons of the Knights Templar, including William Marshal, a friend of King John who helped negotiate the Magna Carta of 1215.

Temple Church. (Marc Atchison/ITD)

Hanks and the rest of The Da Vince Code movie crew spent three days filming at Temple Church and, according to Nicholson, spent all day “just shooting one 10 second scene.”

The floor of Temple Church is bathed in a kaleidoscope of colour thanks to light streaming through a beautiful collection of stained glass windows, which have become as much a drawing card as the buried knights.

The stained glass windows at Temple Church are as famous as the knights. (Marc Atchison/ITD)