The latest episode of Templar Knight TV looks at claims the Knights Templar got to America. It’s alleged they managed to do this a hundred years before Christopher Columbus reached the New World. But is there any truth to this?

The story starts with the Templars’ demise. It’s 1307 and they are being rounded up, imprisoned and some are burned to death. Little wonder some Knights Templar may have fled. A popular theory runs that when word got out that they were doomed, some knights transported treasure from the Paris Temple to the port of La Rochelle. From there, ships took the surviving Templars to Scotland. And then what happened?

Well, I was involved in a programme last year called America Unearthed presented by Scott Wolter. He is a forensic geologist and his analysis of rock carvings in the United States and Scotland has convinced him the knights made the long journey. With the help of a Scottish aristocrat called Henry Sinclair, they crossed the Atlantic to Nova Scotia.

As you will all know, proof that the Knights Templar got to America is offered in the form of items found at Oak Island in Nova Scotia; an enigmatic tower at Newport, Rhode Island and what is claimed to be the engraving of a knight in Westford, Massachusetts. But sceptics abound. They’re not convinced by the Money Pit at Oak Island, think the Newport Tower is a 17th century windmill and that the Westford Knight is a trick of the eye on a glacial boulder.

FIND OUT MORE: Did the Knights Templar take the Holy Grail to America?

As for the Sinclair connection, sceptics point out that these Scottish nobles testified against the Templars at their trial. Far from being good friends and allies of the knights, they had little sympathy and turned on them in their hour of need.

DISCOVER: The Westford Knight is disappearing!

Nevertheless, the argument rages on that the Knights Templar got to America. I go to Rosslyn chapel where some have pointed to images that look like maize – a crop that didn’t exist in the Old World before Columbus. And in the basement sacristy, lines on the wall are claimed to be a map. I had exclusive access when the chapel was empty to film for myself and you can see what I found.

I do hope you can spare a quarter of an hour to get your weekly Templar dose!