Great Eversden, Cambridgeshire

St Mary the Virgin epitomises shabby chic. It's all rather tatty and worn but is beautifully situated and alluringly charming. In the chancel are old misericords and poppyheads.

ST MARY. C14 W tower with diagonal buttresses, battlements, and a spike. The stair turret has a pretty quatrefoil opening in a circle. Perp tower arch and chancel arch, Perp windows, no aisles. N porch humble and cottagey, dated 1636. - CHANCEL STALLS. Two with Misericords, one with a shield, the other with leaves. - PULPIT. Jacobean.

GREAT EVERSDEN. Here lived John Eversden in the very long ago. He was chronicler of the Benedictine abbey of Bury St Edmunds when he died, and he attended the Parliament of 1307 as proctor for his abbot. The College of Heralds in London has a list of names in his own handwriting, compiled by him in the year 1270. His village today lies between dark woods and the Roman road, set in orchards and golden meadows and the church which rose a hundred years after John Eversden was gone is sheltered by line chestnuts in a trim churchyard. A primitive place without an aisle, but with a tower and a short lead spire, its quaint timbered porch has 1636 on the gable and roof beams that all but touch our heads. There are black old timbers in the roofs indoors, Jacobean panels in the chancel, a Jacobean pulpit with borders of flowers and stalls with faces on the arms, and under the seats are carvings of flowers and shields, a rose, and a lion’s head.

Flickr