Models of The Crooked House and De Vere House by Simon Evans

An exhibition of two models of Lavenham buildings (De Vere House and The Crooked House), created by Simon Evans. Simon is a model maker who has gained recognition for building detailed 1/35 scale architectural replicas of famous medieval and Tudor buildings in Suffolk and Essex, also including buildings in Thaxted and Saffron Walden. De Vere House is a hand-crafted replica of the famous Grade I-listed medieval house that appeared in the Harry Potter films, which took roughly 1,000 hours to build and is notable for including detailed interior work. The Crooked House is a replica of Lavenham’s iconic, wonky 14th-century house (dating from 1395), complete with its historic architecture and surrounding neighbours. This project took around 900 hours of hand-building and painting. Simon handcrafts every piece from scratch without using 3D printers or laser cutters, using materials like balsa wood, walnut stripwood, air-dried clay, and polyfilla. Originally born in Sudbury, he began building models during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown and focused on creating a collection of Lavenham’s historic architecture to eventually exhibit locally, and we are honoured to host them here at the church.