Frating, Essex

Dedication unknown, Frating church is redundant and has been converted into a house. It lost its tower sometime in the 90s perhaps when it was converted.

CHURCH (Dedication unknown). Nave, chancel and W tower. The nave has a Norman window with Roman brick surround on the S side, and a Dec window which is repeated similarly on the N side. The chancel windows are of c. 1300. Plain timber S porch. W tower with thin diagonal buttresses, a three-light W window, and tall brick and flint panelling in the battlements. Pyramid roof. Inside, an early C16 recess in the chancel. The depressed pointed arch is adorned with fleurons, the spandrels with big leaves. - PLATE. Cup of 1584.

FRATING. In good farming country, with cottages widely scattered, it has a small stone church with an embattled tower and a red and blue tiled spire. But in this tower are thin red tiles from Roman villas which stood here, some of them encircling a little Norman window peeping at us over the tiled roof of the 600-year-old porch. In the tower is a bell which was ringing at the time of Agincourt, and another which would ring with it at the coming of the Tudor dynasty. There is an Easter Sepulchre 400 years old, and the altar tomb in alabaster and black marble of Thomas Bendish, who died in the same year as Queen Elizabeth.

Flickr.