diff --git a/CHANGES b/CHANGES
index f824827f7..3123cf678 100644
--- a/CHANGES
+++ b/CHANGES
@@ -15,6 +15,9 @@ Incompatible changes
 * PR#269, #1476: replace `<tt>` tag by `<code>`. User customized stylesheets
   should be updated If the css contain some styles for `<tt>` tag.
   Thanks to Takeshi Komiya.
+* #1543: :confval:`templates_path` is automatically added to
+  :confval:`exclude_patterns` to avoid reading autosummary rst templates in the
+  templates directory.
 
 Features added
 --------------
diff --git a/doc/config.rst b/doc/config.rst
index ead0d4448..6c00e6fe4 100644
--- a/doc/config.rst
+++ b/doc/config.rst
@@ -120,6 +120,10 @@ General configuration
    builtin/theme-specific templates).  Relative paths are taken as relative to
    the configuration directory.
 
+   .. versionchanged:: 1.3
+      As these files are not meant to be built, they are automatically added to
+      :confval:`exclude_patterns`.
+
 .. confval:: template_bridge
 
    A string with the fully-qualified name of a callable (or simply a class) that
diff --git a/sphinx/environment.py b/sphinx/environment.py
index 2dfedcd04..d51e7a168 100644
--- a/sphinx/environment.py
+++ b/sphinx/environment.py
@@ -339,6 +339,7 @@ class BuildEnvironment:
         """
         matchers = compile_matchers(
             config.exclude_patterns[:] +
+            config.templates_path +
             config.html_extra_path +
             ['**/_sources', '.#*']
         )