St Mary's Church, Ewell

There has been a church dedicated to Saint Mary the Virgin in Ewell since the 13th century, a board above the south door in the current building recording incumbents from 1239 to the present day. There were two reasons for the demolition of the old church (except for the 15th-century belltower, which still stands in the churchyard today): one was that the building was in such a parlous state of structural repair that it would come down whether demolished under control or allowed to collapse; another was that the incumbent at the time, Sir George Lewen Glyn (known to have been both Rector and Lord of the Manor simultaneously), resented his parishioners' carts all passing his rectory/manor…

The organ was originally built in 1889 by the organ builder Henry Willis for the Anglican parish church of St Augustine, Highbury. In 1975 there was a risk that the latter church would be closed so, to protect the organ's future, they sold it to Saint Mary's, which had lost a similar instrument in a fire two years previously. However, in an ironic twist of fate, the church in Highbury was reprieved just days after the organ was removed and another nearby church, dedicated to St John, closed instead (whose rather smaller organ was installed at St Augustine's). The Ewell organ was installed in its new home by the Liverpool-based firm of Rushworth and Dreaper, but was left much as it had…