Amongst the pictures hanging in Sewerby Hall is a portrait of Yarburgh Greame. He is dressed in the fashionable clothes of a gentleman, and seated in an armchair. There is a window to his right. Through the window, the church of St John the Evangelist, the parish church of Sewerby is visible in the distance. Yarburgh was the great builder of Sewerby Hall, he enlarged the house considerably and yet, when his portrait was painted, of all his various achievements, it was the church that he wanted included.
The church of St John the Evangelist was built by Yarburgh between 1846 and 1848. The design was by Gilbert Scott, who was already, by that time an architect of some renown, he would go on to design the Midland Grand Hotel at St Pancras Station, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Albert Memorial amongst others.
The church was built in the neo Norman style which was inspired by eleventh and twelfth century Romanesque architecture. Writing of the church one local newspaper claimed that “The church is a perfect gem of its kind, in the pure Norman style, and decorated to the minutest detail” and it did indeed have a mix of features that might be found on a Norman church, though not necessarily all at once!