Relhan Collection : 339 Great Eversden church

Relhan, Richard, 1782-1844

Relhan Collection

<p style='text-align: justify;'><p>Added by Ethel Fegan 1935. St Mary’s church has a chancel, nave and tower, is built of clunch and field stones with limestone and clunch dressings, and has a N porch of plasterwork. There is documentary evidence for a church here in 1229 but no early features are visible, the earliest being a C14 window reset in the tower after lightning struck in 1466, leading to a fire and rebuilding of the chancel, nave and tower. The N porch is timber-framed and dated in plaster to1636, but was restored 1864 and described as modern in 1911. The church was restored 1864, but the tower was still described as ‘of poor design and in a dilapidated state’ by Bell, 1884. There was further restoration in 1920. Today (2020) the church still appears similar to how Relhan recorded it. The windows are much the same, including a large one in the chancel, except for small windows that have been added to the tower. The large railed table tomb in Relhan’s drawing survives but has lost its rails and is currently too overgrown to read. Some headstones near the chancel could be candidates for the one Relhan saw. The C16 cottage in the foreground still exists but with few original external features. It is now 2-storeyed with a tiled roof. The churchyard still has the stone wall between it and the road.</p><p>Bell 1884; Evelyn-White 1911; RCHME 1968; VCH 1973</p></p>