West Wratting
Encyclopedia
West Wratting is a village and civil parish 10 miles southeast of Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...

 in Cambridgeshire
Cambridgeshire
Cambridgeshire is a county in England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the northeast, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire to the west...

. At 180 feet (54.9 m) above sea level, it can claim to be the highest village in Cambridgeshire, although the Gog Magog Hills are a little higher.

The parish covers 3,543 acres in south east Cambridge, a thin strip, less than two miles wide, stretching from the London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 to Newmarket road to the border with Suffolk
Suffolk
Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...

. Much of its western border follows the Fleam Dyke
Fleam Dyke
Fleam Dyke is an earthwork in eastern Cambridgeshire, England, generally assumed to be Anglo-Saxon of origin. As a few potsherds of the early and late Bronze age were found in the most eastern part of the dyke it seems that much older earthworks have been used. The archaeologist Prof...

. It is bordered by Weston Colville
Weston Colville
Weston Colville is a village in South Cambridgeshire, 10 miles southeast of Cambridge and 6 miles south of Newmarket, close to the border with Suffolk.-History:...

 to the north and east, and by Balsham
Balsham
Balsham is a rural village and civil parish in the county of Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom which has much expanded since the 1960s and is now one of several dormitory settlements of Cambridge...

 and West Wickham
West Wickham
West Wickham is a place in the London Borough of Bromley, England. It is 10.3 miles south east of Charing Cross. West Wickham history dates back to early settlements existing since 1068, although the name `Wickham` is an indication of an earlier Anglo-Saxon settlement...

 to the south.

History

The parish is believed to have been formed as an offshoot of Great Wratting
Great Wratting
Great Wratting is a village and civil parish in England, about four miles from Haverhill, Suffolk, in the valley of the River Stour. There is a ford across the Stour in the centre of the village, where bathing and fishing are common pursuits.The river here is heavily populated by crayfish, a non...

 in Suffolk. Land at the village is recorded in the Domesday Book
Domesday Book
Domesday Book , now held at The National Archives, Kew, Richmond upon Thames in South West London, is the record of the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086...

 as belonging to one Harduin de Scalers. The same family owned the land until it was granted by Stephen de Scalariis and his wife, Juliana, to the Nunnery of St Mary and St Radegund on the placement there of their daughter Sibil before 1161. It houses a smock mill
Smock mill
The smock mill is a type of windmill that consists of a sloping, horizontally weatherboarded tower, usually with six or eight sides. It is topped with a roof or cap that rotates to bring the sails into the wind...

 dated to 1726, the oldest confirmed in the country.

Two eighteenth century manor houses, West Wratting Hall and West Wratting Park, remain standing. West Wratting Hall was home to E. P. Frost who built an unsuccessful "ornithopter" flying machine, powered by steam. Frost was president of the Aeronautical Society
Royal Aeronautical Society
The Royal Aeronautical Society, also known as the RAeS, is a multidisciplinary professional institution dedicated to the global aerospace community.-Function:...

 from 1908 to 1911, and a later version of his machine can be seen in the Shuttleworth Collection
Shuttleworth Collection
The Shuttleworth Collection is an aeronautical and automotive museum located at the Old Warden airfield in Bedfordshire, England. It is one of the most prestigious in the world due to the variety of old and well-preserved aircraft.- History :...

.

Towards the end of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 an airbase was set up outside the village at RAF Wratting Common, and part of No. 195 Squadron RAF
No. 195 Squadron RAF
No. 195 Squadron was a Royal Air Force aircraft squadron that operated during the second world war at first in the ground attack role and later as heavy bomber unit with the Avro Lancaster.-History:...

 was based there flying Avro Lancaster
Avro Lancaster
The Avro Lancaster is a British four-engined Second World War heavy bomber made initially by Avro for the Royal Air Force . It first saw active service in 1942, and together with the Handley Page Halifax it was one of the main heavy bombers of the RAF, the RCAF, and squadrons from other...

s. After the war, in the late 1940s, the base was used to host foreign displaced persons and workers in the Westward Ho and North Sea scheme work programmes.

Listed as Wreattinge in the 10th century and Waratinge in the Domesday Book
Domesday Book
Domesday Book , now held at The National Archives, Kew, Richmond upon Thames in South West London, is the record of the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086...

, the village's name means "place where crosswort
Cruciata laevipes
Cruciata laevipes Opiz 1852, the Crosswort or in Gaelic Luc na croise, is an indigenous member of the madder and bedstraw group of plants. It is also known as Smooth Bedstraw.- Distribution :...

 or hellebore
Hellebore
Commonly known as hellebores, members of the genus Helleborus comprise approximately 20 species of herbaceous perennial flowering plants in the family Ranunculaceae, within which it gave its name to the tribe of Helleboreae...

 grows".

Church

The village had a church from at least the early 12th century.
The present parish church, dedicated to St Andrew since the 16th century, includes elements dating back to the 13th century. The present building consists of a chancel with north vestry, clerestoried nave with south porch, and west tower. The chancel arch dates from the 13th century, and the tower from the 14th, though foundations of a small tower predating the 13th century have been found.

A nonconfirmist chapel was built in around 1815, but numbers declined in the 1960s to the point of dereliction.

Village life

Today the village houses one pub, the Chestnut Tree, which opened in the late 19th century. There were three alehouses licensed in the village in 1632. The Crown Inn, opposite the church, recorded from 1788, was renamed The Lamb in the 20th century but closed at some point after 1975.

A National day school was opened in 1861 but had completely disbanded by 1971.
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