Church Of St Mary

CHURCH OF ST MARY, GREAT WRATTING

The Church of St Mary at Great Wratting is constructed of flint with stone dressings and has red tiled roofs. It comprises a chancel and unaisled nave with a west tower and north porch, with no structural division internally between the chancel and nave.

The earliest visible fabric dates to the 13th century and is found in the chancel, though the nave is notably short in relation to its width, suggesting considerably earlier origins. The nave windows are largely 14th-century in style, and the tower was added in the 15th century. The entire building underwent heavy restoration in the 19th century, and the west end of the nave was divided off for social purposes by a timber screen in the late 20th century.

The heavily restored exterior displays the following features. The chancel has angle buttresses and a 13th-century triple lancet east window with a continuous hood mould, three 13th-century lancets on the north side, and two on the south, along with a chamfered south chancel door. The nave has 14th-century style windows, all slightly different from one another: on the south, from west to east, two lights with a square head, two ogee lights with a pointed head, and a smaller two-light window. The south nave door has a pointed head and hood mould. The north nave wall has three 2-light windows, all heavily renewed, with the westernmost window, to the west of the porch, having a square head and the others pointed. The gabled north porch features a double chamfered doorway on octagonal responds with brattished capitals and a 15th-century inner door with a square hood mould and carved spandrels; the door itself is also late medieval. The embattled, three-stage west tower has a southeast stair turret with diagonal buttresses on the northwest and southwest, and the northeast and southeast buttresses flush with the tower's east wall. A 3-light west window and 2-light belfry windows are present, with a clock on the north. Scars of an earlier roofline are visible on the east face of the tower.

The interior is painted and plastered. A tall double-chamfered tower arch leads to a medieval timber ceiling in the tower with hollow chamfered beams divided into panels. The west end of the nave is divided off by a 20th-century screen with round-headed glazed arches. The nave and chancel roofs date to the 19th century: the nave has a canted open wagon roof with scissor bracing below the collars and two brattished tie beams, while the chancel has a scissor braced roof boarded behind the rafters. There is no chancel arch; the division between nave and chancel is marked by an infilled truss in the form of a large trefoil comprised of a brattished beam with curved, infilled braces and a pointed arch above. Below this beam is a chancel screen dated 1877 with crested coving and delicate tracery. Head corbels slightly to the west of the screen on either side mark the position of the former rood screen, and the curve of the former rood stair remains visible. Below this is the remains of a probably 15th-century trefoil-headed piscina in a square frame. The chancel's east window features shafts and a continuous hood mould over all three lancets. The three-seat stepped sedilia and matching piscina are similar in form to the east window.

Principal fixtures include 13th-century three-seat stepped sedilia and matching piscina in the chancel, with moulded arches on clustered shafts with moulded capitals and bases; the piscina has a continuous roll moulding and moulded hood mould. The remains of a further 15th-century piscina with a trefoil head survives in the nave below the former rood beam. The north door is a late medieval plank and cover strip door. Both nave and chancel have 19th-century encaustic tile floors in a geometric pattern. A 19th-century pulpit with two timber panels featuring linenfold and tracery rests on a moulded stone base. Nineteenth-century choir stalls have poppy head finials and tracery panels matching the screen. Nineteenth-century nave benches have square-headed moulded tops with miniature buttresses flanking blind panels. The chancel screen of 1877 features crested coving and delicate tracery. Glass in the chancel dates from the 1870s and is by Constable of Cambridge. A very small timber font of 1989 has an octagonal bowl on an octagonal stem. A good lychgate stands nearby.

A church in Wratting is mentioned in Domesday Book, though it is unclear whether this referred to Great or Little Wratting. The earliest visible fabric is the 13th-century chancel. The nave was rebuilt in the 15th century but may have earlier origins. The entire church was heavily restored in the 19th century, and much of the glass was lost during the Second World War.