Bloggo Piccolo: A Day Trip to Colchester

Because Dottore Gianni had to cut his fall break trip quite short, he decided to give himself a day trip to a city in England he'd not yet seen, as a sort of consolation prize. What did the good doctor choose? None of the cities listed in Ten Best Day Trips from London! Instead, he traveled to Colchester.

Colchester Castle, built on the
Temple to Claudius

I have long been interested in Colchester because of its association with ancient Rome. The more I read about it, the more I became convinced that, whether or not it was among the top ten, Colchester was worth investigating. Its Roman connections are strong. Its 12th century castle was built on the remains of a temple to the emperor Claudius, who decided to add the British Isles to his kingdom. Claudius himself spent only a tad more than two weeks in Britain, leading his troops to Camulodunum, a city once the center of power for Cunobelin, who Shakespeare made famous as Cymbeline. Here Claudius signed treaties with several local British kingdoms. Camulodunum was re-named Colonia Claudia and by 49 AD along with the military outpost a civilian settlement had also developed. In 54 AD the temple was built, to worship the dead mortal Claudius, who with his passing had become a god. 

Boudica in her chariot,
Big Ben in the background

One of the tribes that Claudius had made peace with was the Iceni. When the ruler of that tribe died the kingdom was annexed by the Romans instead of passing  to his rightful heirs, his daughters. His wife Boudica (also spelled Boudicca, sometimes known as Boadicea) was whipped and the daughters were raped. This warrior queen took an exacting revenge on Camulodunum, leading an army against the Romans encamped there, destroying them (more than 30,000 perished) and sacking the city. She went on to defeat a Roman force directed against her, then marched on Londinium (you guessed right if you guessed the future London), which city was abandoned. Boudica then burned Londinium down, and moved on to another Roman settlement, Verulamium (now St Albans), destroying that as well. The Romans regrouped and destroyed Boudica's army, ending the fierce revolt. The Roman historian Tacitus claims that she poisoned herself after the defeat. 

A portion of the Roman Wall
in Colchester's Castle Park

So that's an interesting early history of this pleasant village, is it not? It continues...after Boudica's revolt was put down Camolodunum or Colonia Claudia was rebuilt, this time with a strong defensive wall. Two-thirds of the wall still stands today. But of course the Romans left Britain early in the fifth century, and after that there is little evidence of anything going on there, except that one British historian argues that it could have had connections with Arthur, and that Camelot may well have come from the town's first name: Camolodunum. No way to prove that, of course, but in the tenth century there is a reference to Camolodunum when a Saxon king drove out the Danes (Vikings) who had settled there. The Saxons may have given it the name it still holds, Colchester, possibly from Colneceaster (fortress on the river Colne) After that it seems to have become a Saxon village, until of course 1066, when the Norman William the Conqueror took control of Britain. 

The River Colne

The castle, pictured above, came into being in the eleventh century as one of many Norman keeps, built throughout England and Wales to maintain power. The castle was taken for a time by the French, But King John won it back for England in 1216. The Doomsday Book names Colchester as a wealthy city, and it prospered until 1348, when the Black Death claimed more than a quarter of the town's residents.


Jumping forward to the Stuart era, the town found itself caught between the king and parliament. A royalist army took it in 1648 and parliamentary forces conducted a siege that lasted eleven weeks and was responsible for hundreds of deaths among the citizens of Colchester. At the end of the siege two royalists were executed by firing squad. There is a marker in the Castle Park remembering their deaths.

Those are the highlights of Colchester history. Today the town is easily accessed from London. My train ride to it was a pleasant, 46-minute non-stop journey. Much as I love London, it is a relief to escape its traffic jams and noise and dirt. I found such relief in Colchester. I visited the Castle, which is very kid-friendly, and school groups, not soldiers, were besieging it on Friday afternoon. 

Castle Park in autumn

More pleasant was Castle Park, a sprawling area of green which was in very active use on this unusually sunny and warm day in late October. A good bit of Roman wall aand also the River Colne run through the park, there is also a little cafe, a duck pond, and so on. It's a beautiful place for a stroll, a picnic, or just a place to relax in contemplation of the loveliness of Essex.

The town itself is quite pretty. There is an impressive High Street -- and it IS high -- I noticed a lot of flat land on the journey. One of the reasons Colchester was popular with Romans as well as with the Normans was that it rose from the rest of the landscape, a strategic location for a Roman fort or a Norman castle.

The High Street

But it is the small streets off the High Street that are really lovely. Together they comprise a maze of pleasant pedestrian zones, .filled with shops, pubs, cafes and tea rooms, food stands, a farmers' market (where I bought blueberries more blueberries for £3 that I'd have paid £9 for in London). I spent a good bit of time strolling this area and would go back and do it again!

Pedestrian zone in Colchester

I had lunch in a pub very near the castle, called, oddly enough, The Castle! 

It's a pretty place and has a large outdoor section, where I enjoyed a pint and a ploughman's lunch. A ploughman's usually consists of some ham, some cheese, some greens, pickles, pickled onions, and chutney. Mine was a ploughman's of some size:

Indeed there was so much ham and cheese that I took half of it away, with me. For those of you interested in such stuff, the pint was a good, common London ale, called Bombardier.


After lunch I embarked on the one slight disappointment of my day in Colchester. I had read about an art walk called, Town to Sea, where 14 sculptures along the way adorned a walk down the river. It was a fine idea in theory, but the art was not all that interesting, and walk took me to some pretty miserable looking parts of Colchester and the River Colne. 

Town to Sea walk:
The art

In fact I gave it up about halfway through. Not only was it somewhat dull in spots, but it was also not all that well marked, and when I could not figure out whether or not to cross a small bridge across the river I realized it was time to stop and turn around. 

Town to Sea walk:
The river

More shopping after that, then a quick hike to the train station, and after between four and five hours in a really enjoyable town off I went back to London. The cram-packed train I was sardined into on the underground made me long for the relative peace of the pretty, rural town of Colchester.

Oh! I almost forgot what showed me beyond question that Colchester was a classy place and well worth the visit. A shop named: 

What fine taste!