 |
|
| After initial forays by Julius Caesar in 55 and 54 BC, the Romans invaded Britain a century later in AD 43. By AD 78, in spite of resistance from leaders such as Caractacus and Boudicca, they had subdued England and Wales and were free to turn their attention to Scotland. In 60 AD Queen Boudica led a rebellion and she attacked Colchester. The defenders took refuge in the temple of Claudius but the rebels broke in. They killed the people and burned the temple. They also burned the rest of the town (an easy task as most of the buildings were made of wood). After the rebellion was crushed the Romans rebuilt Colchester. Between about 65 and 100 a wall was built around the town. There was also a small fort at Gosbecks. |  |
 | There were at least 8 temples in Colchester. By the 4th century there was a considerable Christian community in the town and Britain's earliest known Christian church was in Colchester. A small number of Saxons may have lived within the walls of Colchester and farmed the land there but Colchester ceased to function as a town. Nevertheless the Saxons gave Colchester its name. They called it Colne Caester. Caester was the Saxon word for a group of Roman buildings. For hundreds of years history is silent about Colchester. In the 9th century the Danes invaded England and conquered the eastern side including Colchester. But the English fought back from the South and West. The Danes probably used Colchester as a stronghold as it still had its Roman walls. Both sides, Danes and English used old Roman towns and forts as strongholds where the local men could gather in the event of an enemy attack. |
| In 121, the Emperor Hadrian visited Britain and built his famous stone wall from the Solway to the Tyne; only 20 years later a turf wall was constructed from the Clyde to the Forth and was named the Antonine Wall after the Emperor Antoninus Pius. This was held for 50 years. In AD 208, the Emperor Septimius Severus led a final advance north of the Forth before dying in York in AD 211. For the next two centuries, Hadrian's Wall was the northern boundary of the Roman Empire. |  |
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a sort of national diary, mentions Colchester in the yeare 917 when it the English recaptured it from the Danes. The chronicle says: ' The people gathered that Autumn, from Kent, Surrey, and Essex and from the nearest burghs (fortified towns). They went to Colchester, besieged the town and fought till they overcame it and killed all the people except those who fled away over the wall'. The English then repaired the damage to Colchester and occupied it.
At the time of the Domesday Book, in 1086, Colchester had 419 houses. It also had 4 watermills that ground grain to flour for the townspeople and 2 parish churches. In the late 11th century the Normans built a castle in Colchester. It was probably begun around 1079 and was complete by 1100. The castle was built on the vaults of the old temple of Claudius. In 1216 some barons rebelled against king John and brought soldiers from France to help them. The French soldiers occupied Colchester castle. John's men besieged the castle and expelled the French. In 1095 St Johns Abbey was founded outside the South Gate. St Botolphs Priory was founded around 1100. (A priory was a small monastery). Early in the 12th century St Mary Magdaelenes 'hospital' for lepers was founded outside the town to the Southeast. Magdalen Road is named after the leper hospital.
By 1104 Colchester had a fair. A fair was like a market but it was held only once a yeare and would attract buyers and sellers from London and all of East Anglia. The fair was held by St Johns Abbey. The Abbott had the right to charge tolls on stallholders at the fair. From 1189 the Hospital of St. Mary Magdalene was allowed to hold a fair. From 1310 St Botolph's Priory was allowed to hold one. By the late 12th century there was a community of Jews in Colchester. But in the late 13th century all Jews were expelled from England. Colchester was given a new charter in 1413. At that time Colchester gained its coat of arms. St Helena, the patron saint of Colchester is supposed to have found the true cross of Christ. This is shown on the coat of arms.
In the 13th century friars arrived in Colchester. Friars were like monks except that rather than withdrawing from the world they went out to preach. In Colchester there were Franciscans (known as Grey friars because of the colour of their habits). There were also crutched friars (Augustinians). They had a cross sewn on their habits. They were first called Cruxed friars from crux the Latin word for cross. It became corrupted to crutched.
In 1538 Henry VIII closed the Abbey, the priory and the friaries. His daughter Mary 1553-1558 tried to undo the religious changes of the first half of the century. During her reign some 23 Protestants from Colchester and the surrounding area where burned in Colchester. In 1565 Queen Elizabeth allowed refugees from Holland to come to Colchester, where they made bays, a kind of cloth. By 1575 at least 500 Dutch settlers had come to Colchester. The area north of the High Street became known as the Dutch quarter.
In 1635 Colchester was given a new charter and gained its first mayor. Like other towns in the 16th and 17th centuries Colchester suffered outbreaks of plague. There were severe outbreaks in 1603-4 and 1665-66. The latter outbreak may have killed half the population, (which was about 8,000). Amazingly Colchester soon recovered. There were always plenty of people in the countryside willing to come and work in the town. Civil war between king and parliament raged between 1642 and 1646. Colchester escaped the fighting as it was in an area controlled by parliament during the war. Originally the townspeople supported parliament but they seem to have grown disillusioned. A second civil war broke out in 1648. In June of that yeare a royalist army approached Colchester. The gates were closed but after a short fight the royalist soldiers were allowed in. A parliamentary army came and laid siege to the town. The siege lasted for till the end of August and the townspeople were reduced to eating cats and dogs. Furthermore many houses in Colchester were damaged by cannon fire. Inevitably the town surrendered. Afterwards 2 of the royalist commanders were executed next to the castle. The people of Colchester were also forced to pay a fine of 12,000 pounds (a very large sum in those days). At the end of the 17th century a travel writer, Celia Fiennes described Colchester: 'Colchester is a large town. You enter the town by a gate. There are 4 in all. There is a large street which runs a great length down to the bridge, its nearly a mile long. Through the middle of it runs another broad street nearly the same length in which is the Market Cross and Town Hall and a long building, like stalls, on which they lay their bays, exposed for sale. Great quantities are made here and sent in bales to London. The whole town is employed in spinning, weaving, washing, drying and dressing their bays in which they seem very industrious. The town looks a thriving place judging by the substantial houses. It has well paved streets, which are broad enough for 2 coaches to go abreast'.
The Bluecoat School, a charity school for boys and girls, opened in 1710. It was called that because of the colour of the school uniforms. Hollytrees, which is now a museum was built in 1718. Colchester gained its first theatre in 1764. The Minories, which is now an art gallery, was built in 1776. During the 18th century the cloth trade in Colchester declined in the face of competition from the North of England. By the early 19th century it had died out. Although at the end of the 18th century a silk weaving industry began. Colchester dwindled to being a market town where agricultural produce was bought and sold. But it was still a fair size. In 1801 its population was around 11,500, which was quite large by the standards of the time. In the early 19th century fulling mills (used to clean and thicken wool) were converted to milling grain to flour. In the 18th century Colchester became famous for candied eryngo (sea holly) roots. A writer said: 'To the Colchester oysters let me subjoin another thing which Colchester is famous for viz. the excellent sweetmeats made of eryngo roots'.