14 May 2016 - The Lodge, Kingsford, near Colchester, Essex

Jumbo

It was cold this morning when we rose, reminding us of the temperatures suffered the first week or so after arriving here in the UK. We headed back out to the dual carriageway, headed north to the Park and Ride and caught the bus into the middle of Colchester, ready to check the city out by 9.30 am. The first of the market stalls were open, although the customers were still thin on the ground. The stall holders were still using their natural voices rather than the fake accents we caught some using the day we went to Ipswich. 

 Rather than buy their wares, we were lured into an outdoor goods retail store by some marked down walking shoes on a rack by the door. Soon we were exercising our debit card and arranging to pick up our shoe boxes later in the day rather than carry around cumbersome shopping all day.

Colchester's Town Hall

We wandered about the maze of streets making up the city centre, finding the library to have some printing done and the Vodafone shop to find out how to turn off our message service, which is a very tricky way for Vodafone to take money off you when you check your messages, even though you apparently have free national calling. In future people will no longer be leaving messages on our phones, messages that are never checked.

Our guide books suggested we should check out “Jumbo” at the top of High Street; we assumed correctly that this was the very tall tower behind the post office. It is in fact the largest remaining Victorian water tower in Britain. 

The Balkerne Gate

Hollytrees House

Just beyond the tower is the Balkerne gate, the west gate of Colchester’s Roman wall, this the largest surviving gateway in Roman Britain. I mentioned in yesterday’s post that Colchester is considered the first town in England, and this comes of its Roman history and recorded history even further back. 

Colchester Castle

In AD 60 Bodica and her followers rose up against the Romans, burning Colchester to the ground. Following this disaster, the Romans enclosed the town with a stone wall to protect it from further attack. Around two hundred years later the town defences were strengthened against the threat of Saxon raids. During the Middle Ages the wall gradually ceased to be used for defence although it was repaired at various times. After the siege of Colchester in 1648, sections of the wall were pulled down and others built over. A house, now the “Hole in the Wall” pub, was built on top of the remains of the Balkerne gate.

We walked back down through the town to the Castle gardens finding a sheltered spot out of the wind for our lunch beside a pond and ate our sandwiches while watching four very new little ducks explore their small world.  Refuelled we entered the Castle which acts as a most impressive museum, and joined a three quarter hour tour which took us down into the bowels of the structure and then up into the ramparts; all very interesting. We then spent more time exploring the public accessible sections of the Castle, then back out into the gardens which today were just beautiful; full of colourful blooms, a squirrel and dozens of weekend families out for the afternoon despite the cold temperatures.

Castle Park caretaker

The Castle pretty much as it stands today, was built by the Normans on top of the Temple remains which had fallen into decay over the centuries. For some time it was used as a prison for heretics and witches, then much later, the Castle Grounds became part of the Hollytrees House estate and garden, which were added to the Park in the 1920s to form the park as it is today.

The grounds run down to the River Colne, part of which has been diverted into a small boating lake, on which you can paddle about in giant sized swan vessels, all very kitschy and no doubt pricey as were the ice-creams we decided not to have.

Back up on the hill we walked across the now very busy streets to the ruins of St Botolph’s Priory, founded in 1103 by a community of priests who had previously served an important church on the site. Colchester became the first Augustinian monastery in the country, soon followed by a further two hundred or so more across England and Wales. In 1536, when the Priory already had a much reduced community, it was closed on the orders of Henry VIII and stripped of its assets. Any remains were finished off during the siege in 1648 during the English Civil War.

After checking the ruined structures out and posing for the obligatory photo, we headed back through the many city walks and lanes to High Street, found the outdoor gear shop and picked up our new shoes, before catching the bus back to the Park and Ride and so home, footsore and weary, or at least I was.

Flower beds in Castle Park

Back in camp, we found our hosts had returned from their fortnight's holiday in Spain, and would be away again on Monday when we head north. A trusting lot, they left us with instructions as to how and when we should settle up as we leave.

St Botolph's Priory

Speaking of which, it had been our intention to travel south to the Dover area after visiting London, and then working our way westward along the south coast. Plans have had to be changed because Chris is keen to attend the annual reunion of past and present residents of Blo’ Norton, Norfolk, where he was born and spent the first few years of his life. His brother and sister have attended this annual gathering for the past few years, and each year Margie has reported to us via Skype what this one or that one is up to. This year Chris can catch up with all these old folk himself, and I can keep John’s Mary company, she also being an “outsider”.  Hence we have come back toward Suffolk, still tonight in Essex, on Monday travelling to Norwich, before coming back down into the “homelands” of this Clarke family.