West Wratting
| West Wratting | |
|---|---|
 St Andrew's Church |
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 The village pump at West Wratting |
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 West Wratting
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| West Wratting shown within Cambridgeshire | |
| Population | 436 (2001) 502 (2011) |
| OS grid reference | TL605515 |
| Shire county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | CAMBRIDGE |
| Postcode district | CB21 |
| Dialling code | 01223 |
| EU Parliament | East of England |
West Wratting is a village and civil parish 10 miles southeast of Cambridge in Cambridgeshire. At 390 feet (120 m) above sea level, it can claim to be the highest village in Cambridgeshire.
The parish covers 3,543 acres in south east Cambridge, a thin strip, less than two miles wide, stretching from the London to Newmarket road to the border with Suffolk. Much of its western border follows the Fleam Dyke. It is bordered by Weston Colville to the north and east, and by Balsham and West Wickham to the south.
The parish is believed to have been formed as an offshoot of Great Wratting in Suffolk. Land at the village is recorded in the Domesday Book 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 dated to 1726, the oldest confirmed in the country.
Two 18th 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 flapping-wing flying machine ("ornithopter"), powered by steam. Frost was president of the Aeronautical Society from 1908 to 1911, and a later version of his machine can be seen in the Shuttleworth Collection.
Towards the end of World War II an airfield was set up outside the village at RAF Wratting Common, and part of No. 195 Squadron RAF was posted there equipped with Avro Lancasters. After the war in the late 1940s, the station was used to host foreign displaced persons and workers in the Westward Ho! and North Sea scheme work programmes.
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