St Edward, King & Martyr
Evenlode
Services
St Edwards in Evenlode has a loyal congregation attracted to its BCP services.
There are special services for festivals, which are family orientated.
Contact:
Mr. Mark Dancer, churchwarden, tel. 01608 651 653
The Church & PARISH
The tender Evenlode, that makes
Her meadows hush to hear the sound
Of waters mingling in the brakes
And binds my heart to English ground
A lovely river, all alone,
She lingers in the hills and holds
A hundred little towns of stone,
Forgotten in the western wolds.
So wrote Hilaire Belloc. In a lush corner of Evenlode village and valley is St Edward’s, a Late Norman church enlarged in the 14th century and restored, by JEK Cutts, in the 19th century.
The original church comprised a nave and narrow chancel divided by the chancel arch; later an Early English lancet window was introduced in the nave’s north wall. In the 14th century the south aisle was added with a graceful arcade of pointed arches (to replace the old south wall) and two fine Decorated windows in the new south wall.
There is a piscina in the cill of one of these windows and some medieval glass in the other, part representing a bearded head of Edward the Confessor. The splendid sedilia underneath may have been moved from the chancel. On the floor is a thick circular stone, evidently a millstone used to grind corn for the communion bread. Nearby are the remains of five small steps to a rood loft. In the nave is a fine l5th century oak pulpit with three small supporters.
Piscina, millstone and stone-elbowed chair in the south aisle: the chair was moved from the chancel in 1878 is possibly a sanctuary chair for those fleeing the law, a practice which was abolished in the 17th century.
Shortly after the south aisle came the three-stage west tower with its parapet and buttresses. At the foot of its west wall is the church’s tiny west door and, inside. a staircase to the belfry. On the north wall of the tower are memorials to two rectors William Horton (1786-1805) and Charles James (1830-57): the one in between, William Jones, doubled as curate of Bledington and has a fond memorial there.
The Victorian work was in two stages – in 1879 the chancel was restored with two pointed arches to a new north vestry, and in |886 the nave was restored. The 1911 clock commemorates King George V’s coronation. The 1942 tower arch screen was ‘executed by the rector the Revd Thomas Smith assisted by Mr F Dee’. Near the screen, at the back of the nave, is a painting of a fresco found above the chancel arch; it shows angels and others to left and right of a central figure but the subject is not altogether clear.
Evenlode means Eowla’s river crossing. In Anglo-Saxon times Evenlode was the subject of a dispute between the monks of Evesham and Worcester, based on rival charters from King Offa. The monks of Worcester had a 772 charter granting Evenlode to the thegn Ridda with reversion to Bredon monastery founded by Offa’s grandfather Ethelbald; the monks of Evesham had a 784 charter granting it to Earl Esme with reversion to Evesham. Eventually the latter was found to be forged, and by 969 Evenlode had become the property of St Oswald, Bishop of Worcester, part of his dispersed triple hundred of Oswaldslaw (and therefore in Worcestershire, as commemorated by the Four Shires Stone). Later bishops granted Evenlode to another Abbot of Evesham around 1050 and to Hugh Poer (of the family which gave its name to Guiting Power) around 1150.
Over the years the lordship of the manor passed to local families called Deyvile and Petyt, to the Comptons of Compton Wynyates and to John Jones of Chastleton and his descendants. From 1601 the advowson was held separately, latterly by various incumbents, one of whom, Henry Kelsall (1895-1922), left it to the Church Association, now the Church Society Trust and current patron.