er hold on there a moment...Evans were/are not little known and built their own framesets until very recently, now they have them built to a very high spec in any tubing the cyclist punter wants, they also held the CTC innovation award twice pre-war, they produced the first frame with microadjuster dropouts that worked and were the first manufacturer of unusual tube sections: ovalised pre 1930, they also made the now highly prized taper tube machines (in the mid 1930s) that Mr Sarotta copied (in the 1970s) similarly to pre war Selbach and Holdsworth and post war Gillott.
They are very nice unflowery machines made with Chater Lea lugsets and Accles and Pollock tubing pre 531, and thence just about any top range tubing and lugset that was wished for post war - lots of 531 and nervex abound post war. At their height they had 5 shops, they still have at least 3 to my knowledge, and are very much one of the considered machines in London to own in this present day (not bad for 80 years trading or so) and most likely have a turnover in excess of £3M, they are one of the few businesses left that sell quality touring lightweight kit as well as BMX and MTB.
Pre war machines have a lovely art deco logo with a flowery E and the Ovalised logo is a unique logo and very pretty - most of these machines are badged made in Kennington, post war go to an almost comic sans block FW Evans logo and badged made in Waterloo or Wandsworth and I think Woking but Hilary can most likely confirm this - I own a very nice 1933 example with a sturmey archer coke bottle KS close ratio hub... of a similar quality to the Hetchins on Ebay (perhaps better as by the the time Hetchins had made number 6 Evans were well into their 1000s? now theres a provocative statement. ;7)
As a matter of filling in a few more details: Condors had a a very exclusive reputation when Bill Hurlow was making for them - but he stopped 10 years ago... and most of the machines like Maclean Condor Holdsworth Grubb any of the Claude Butlers had builders in common especially in the latter part of their independant trading period, its the smaller makers and pre war and just post war marques that had exclusivity of builders - Rensch Weaver Carpenter Ephgrave Gillott Chas Roberts etc - the best of em in my estimation is Bill Gray who still repairs and does wonderful work well into his eighties - he just repaired a crank arm and made a set of forks for me... (he was an apprentice at Claude Butlers in 1936)
Regards Mike Dearing