Leper church

	Once a peaceful refuge for the most unfortunate

School textbooks concede that the Crusades were a failure but comfort the reader with the reflection that returning crusaders brought back a host of new ideas - fortification, armour, silk, carpets, spices - that in some way compensated for the other failures.

Unfortunately the crusaders also brought back a host of new diseases: syphillis may have been one, leprousy definitely was another. The period saw a sudden surge in the construction of hospitals to accommodate these unfortunates, and the leper chapel of St Mary Magdalene is one of these new foundations.

Its later history is interesting and rather unfortunate - an exposé of human greed and chicanery.