Sir Arthur was forty two years her senior: he caused huge hilarity at an antiquarian conference of learned and erudite gentlemen when he brought in a four-year-old Joan to be "shown off".
[11] Evans travelled from a young age, a trip with her mother to Rome when she was 21 led to her decision to study archaeology rather than anthropology, and she developed a lifelong love for France.
She visited France both for research and for pleasure and in 1947 she purchased the Romanesque Chapel of the Monks in Berzé-la-Ville, donating it to the Académie de Mâcon.
[8] She gave her time and money to various causes, often anonymously, and, despite being described as "one of the most distinguished and influential figures of the century in art and antiquarian scholarship" at her Memorial Service at St Hugh's College in 1977,[14] she was made Dame Commander of the British Empire in the New Year's Honours List of 1976, not for her pioneering work in the arts, but for charitable services.
Photographs taken in France by Joan Evans are included in the archive of the Conway Library currently being digitised under the wider Courtauld Connects project.
[17][5] Evans bought Thousand Acres, Wotton-under-Edge, in 1939 and lived there, dividing her time between Gloucestershire and her London apartment,[7] until her death in 1977 at the age of 84.