A VICAR was stunned to learn that a chorister who lived in a “tumbledown bungalow” had left £1.8million to the abbey he loved.

Vincent Evans, a former Royal Navy commander who died last November, left his estate to Sherborne Abbey, which had become “his life” in later years.

The vicar of Sherborne, Canon Eric Woods, said Mr Evans had been a member of the choir there for many years.

“He had dropped the odd hint that he would remember the abbey in his will but he lived very modestly in a fairly tumbledown bungalow in Yetminster,” he said.

“Apart from going to London to the opera and concerts and so on, he didn’t spend much money on himself so we had absolutely no idea he was such a wealthy man.”

He added: “I’m first of all dumbstruck but enormously grateful yet conscious that it’s a heavy responsibility.”

He said of the bequest: “We’re told that the approximate value is in the region of £1.85million but it’s mostly in investments so it’s difficult to give a precise figure.

“Unlike most donors, he’s placed no restriction in terms of conditions and covenants on it at all.”

A working party has been set up to look into the issue, under the abbey’s treasurer Bernard Brown, a former partner of professional services firm KPMG. The estate could produce an income of £70,000 a year if invested and Mr Woods said there had been no decision yet on how it should be used.

The fabric of the building – founded as a Saxon cathedral in AD 705 – is already maintained by the fundraising efforts of the Friends of Sherborne Abbey.