Frating: Dedication Unknown
Overview
Grid reference: TM 81 223
One early twelfth-century window survives in the south nave wall, and others date from the early fourteenth century. The tower is a little later, but probably contemporary with the wooden south porch. The north aisle is partly fourteenth century, extended westwards during a restoration in the nineteenth century which has left a pronounced mark on the church.
Visiting and facilities
Building is closed for worship
Building
Ground Plan Description and Dimensions
Ground plan:
West tower, nave with north aisle and south porch, chancel.
Description of Archaeology and History
One early twelfth-century window survives in the south nave wall, and others date from the early fouteenth century. The tower is a little later, but probably contemporary with the wooden south porch. The north aisle is partly fourteenth century, extended westwards during a restoration in the nineteenth century which has left a pronounced mark on the church.
Exterior Description
The west tower is of three receding stages with diagonal buttresses which die away before the top stage. The rubble-built walls are covered with rendering in places, but most of this has gone, leaving an attractive variety of textures. The ground floor is blind to the north and south, but has a small early fourteenth-century doorway in the west wall with a three-light window above it with renewed reticulated tracery. The second stage has in the west wall a tiny window high in the wall with brick jambs and a stone trefoiled ogee head, but otherwise no other openings. The topmost stage shows considerable signs of nineteenth-century restoration, with much renewed stonework to the belfry openings. These each have cusped Y tracery and big projecting louvres of undue prominence. The parapet above has tall and narrow panels of flint flushwork, perhaps deriving from the gatehouse at St. Osyth not far away. The parapet and the tiled pyramid cap within it are all nineteenth-century, as is the exceptionally pretty spiky weathervaneon the apex . Four mediaeval faces , their mouths open as gargoyles , survive just below parapet level. The staircase is contained within a shallow semi-octagonal projection at the north- east corner.
The south nave wall has the two earliest features of the building, both constructed of re-used Roman brick of a vivid red hue. One is a small round-headed Norman window high in the wall just to the east of the porch and the other is the south-west angle which appears to date from the same time. The two other windows, a single light and double light, are both nineteenth-century, as is the moulded stone cornice. The early fourteenth-century doorway has been almost entirely renewed, but the porch which shields it dates entirely from the fourteenth century. The structure is of timber framing upon a plinth of limestone and flint. The lower parts of the side walls are filled with panels of flint, and the upper part is open. The stout timbers which form the doorway contrast with the slender ogee arches which brace the roof, and may well have had applied decoration originally.
The chancel was rebuilt in the early fourteenth-century as may be seen from the three north windows. These are of uniform pattern, each a single wide light with a trefoiled head. This pattern is repeated twice in the south wall, the western window of the two carried down lower as a low-side window (the lower part now closed by a nineteenth-century wooden casement). The third window in the south wall, that nearest the east end, is of two lights, later than the other windows, with trefoiled ogee heads to the lights and a small trefoil under the triangular head. The stonework is much restored. Between the two western windows in this wall is a small priest's door of about 1300 with chamfered jams and a two-centred arched head (similar to the west doorway in the tower). The east window is all nineteenth-century, composed of three stepped lancets.
The north aisle seems externally all to be nineteenth-century, but this is misleading. The east bay is fourteenth-century in origin, and the east window bears witness to this date, although much renewed. The eastern of the two windows in the north wall is similar to one in the south pave wall, and it may be that this bay once formed a chapel which was extende westwards when the church was restored in the last century. The western bay has a two-light window which copies those just mentioned, and a three light window in the north wall which is more like the east window of the aisle, with ogee-headed lights and two pointed quatrefoils at tracery lights. Above the west window, in the gable, is a triangular opening with curved sides filled with tracery round a central roundel. The only buttresses of the church are in the middle of the north aisle wall and at the south-east corner of the nave.
Building Fabric and Features
Stained Glass
c.1900
The east window represents The Ascension in a style typical of Clayton and Bell , c. 1900.
Stained Glass
c.1874
The south-west chancel window, also perhaps by Clayton and Bell, represents The Good Shepherd, with birds and butterflies in the panel above the figure, an unusual detail.
Stained Glass
The other chancel windows have grisaille in bold patterns with coloured borders of blue and red.
Interior
Interior Description
The doorway to the church which is protected by the south porch has been entirely renewed, and prepares the way for the interior which is now almost entirely nineteenth-century in appearance. The chancel arch and tower arch, together with the north arcade, show no mediaeval features, although all may well be accurate representation of their fore-runners. The moulded chancel arch is carried on half-round responds with semi- octagonal capitals, and is outlined by a hoodmoulding which terminates higher than might be expected, the intervening space being filled with a pair of kneeling angels incised in the plaster. The varied windows in the south wall of the nave are within plain reveals, and are filled with grisaille and cathedral glass. The floor is tiled, the pews and pulpit are of pine and the roof is also pine, of three bays with tracoried piercing in the spandrels of the braces.
The north arcade is of two wide bays, the moulded capitals of the two responds and central pier having incised carving of foliage above, an unusual feature. The two bays of the aisle, although roofed uniformly outside, are quite different within; the west bay, which appears to be a nineteenth-century addition, follows the tall gabled roofline seen outside, but the east bay, separated from the latter by a cusped wooden arch with big quatrefoils and trefoils in the spandrels, has a low pitched timber roof with the ridge running north-south, implying that this part formerly stood alone as a transeptal chapel. The wide underside of the ridge is decorated in the centre with a fluted oval pattern, which seems certainly eighteenth-century although the form of the roof is a century earlier. A small fire-place in the south- east corner suggests former use as a vestry or family pew.
The chancel roof is of pine, panelled in contrast to the open nave roof, and the floor is tiled. Tiles also appear in a dado along the east wall below the window, which is at present mostly hidden by a yellow curtain and a small reredos. The three north windows and three south windows are all filled with grisaille, some of which is thought by the Royal Commission to be mediaeval. The east window is one of only two windows with figure subjects in the church, and represents the Ascension. The south east window reveal is carried down as sedilia, and between the two eastern windows, in the north wall is a sixteenth-century recess under a low-pitched four-centred arch decorated with fleurons along the moulding and stylised foliage in the spandrels. There are a few monuments, and one ledger slab within the sanctuary.
Fixtures and fittings
Organ (object)
The organ is a Casson 'Positif' with seven speaking stops.
Pulpit
The pulpit is semi-octagonal with trefoiled arches in each face
Altar
The altar rails are continuous trefoiled arcading.
Churchyard
Grid reference: TM 81 223
Burial and War Grave Information
It is unknown whether the building is consecrated.
It is unknown whether the churchyard has been used for burial.
It is unknown whether the churchyard is used for burial.
It is unknown whether the churchyard has war graves.
National Heritage record for England designations
There are no records of National Heritage assets within the curtilage of this site.
Environment
Ancient, Veteran & Notable Trees
Caring for God's Acre is a conservation charity working to support groups and individuals to investigate, care for, and enjoy the wildlife and heritage treasures found within churchyards and other burial grounds. Look on their website for information and advice and please contact their staff directly. They can help you manage this churchyard for people and wildlife.
To learn more about all the species recorded against this church, go to the Burial Ground Portal within the NBN Atlas. You can check the spread of records through the years, discovering what has been recorded and when, plus what discoveries might remain to be uncovered.
There are no records of Ancient, Veteran or Notable Trees within the curtilage of this site.
Renewables
| Renewable | Installed |
|---|---|
| Solar PV Panels | N/A |
| Solar Thermal Panels | N/A |
| Biomass | N/A |
| Wind Turbine | N/A |
| Air Source Heat Pump | N/A |
| Ground Source Heat Pump | N/A |
| Ev Charging | N/A |
Species summary
There are no records of species within the curtilage of this site.
Caring for God's Acre is a conservation charity working to support groups and individuals to investigate, care for, and enjoy the wildlife and heritage treasures found within churchyards and other burial grounds. Look on their website for information and advice and please contact their staff directly. They can help you manage this churchyard for people and wildlife.
To learn more about all the species recorded against this church, go to the Burial Ground Portal within the NBN Atlas. You can check the spread of records through the years, discovering what has been recorded and when, plus what discoveries might remain to be uncovered.
'Seek advice' Species
More information on species and action to be taken upon discovery.
Caring for God's Acre is a conservation charity working to support groups and individuals to investigate, care for, and enjoy the wildlife and heritage treasures found within churchyards and other burial grounds. Look on their website for information and advice and please contact their staff directly. They can help you manage this churchyard for people and wildlife.
To learn more about all the species recorded against this church, go to the Burial Ground Portal within the NBN Atlas. You can check the spread of records through the years, discovering what has been recorded and when, plus what discoveries might remain to be uncovered.
Further information
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