Colchester

Thwarted by bad weather two weekends ago, we had to abandon our planned visit to Colchester, first capital of Roman Britain (where, that weekend, some Roman re-enactments had been planned -- but which would probably have had to be drastically scaled down, so perhaps we didn't miss much). This Saturday just past, the weather was much better -- the forecast promised a pale overcast typical of the English autumn, but instead we had near cloudless skies for much of the day, following a walking tour (published by the Ramblers Association in their quarterly magazine "Walk") around the most historic bits of the town, with a long detour into Colchester Castle Museum for an inspection of their extensive Roman collections. (The Castle Museum is in fact a roofed-over Norman keep, the largest ever constructed in Britain by William's conquerors and the model for the Tower of London's White Tower.) And a temporary exhibition, of which we knew naught until we read a brochure on the train to Colchester, of terracotta figurines from the royal tombs at Xuzhou, capital of China's Western Han dynasty from 206 BCE to 8 CE. (Apparently, Essex is twinned with the PRC's Jiangsu Province -- who knew?) This unfortunately meant that we had to skip Hollytrees Museum of Local History, and -- running short of time before our train back to London -- failed to locate the extravagant early Tudor gatehouse to St John's Abbey (all that's left of the Abbey) just south of the town's Roman/medieval/Civil War walls, but never mind: Colchester has a Roman re-enactment on the first weekend of every October, so in twelve months' time we might be back there to examine what we missed on this visit. (Including the guided tour of the Castle which visits parts of it not otherwise open to the public, such as the Roman foundations of the Temple to the Emperor Claudius, destroyed in the Boudiccan Revolt in 60 CE.) In the meantime, enjoy this selection of photographs -- of the Castle Museum, of Judith at the Balkerne Gate (the main entrance to the town in the Roman period, which is thought to have begun life as a triumphal arch to the Claudian invasion before its destruction in the Boudiccan Revolt), St Botolph's Priory -- the first Augustinian monastery in England -- and the Saxon tower of Holy Trinity Church, both constructed of reused Roman bricks and tiles, and the historic holes in Siege House caused by the musket balls of the Royalist troops on 5 July 1648 as they attempted to break through the ring of Parliamentarians who were besieging the town. A strange siege, considering that the town actually supported the Parliamentarians during the Civil War, and the Royalists had been allowed to billet themselves there on the understanding that they would move on after just one night....