Colchester: A History

by Andrew Phillips

Colchester boasts 2,000 years of history. Few towns in Britain can equal that. Yet this new book, by a local author, is the first full and concise history of Colchester to be published for over half a century, during which time our knowledge of the town's past has grown immeasurably. The Iron-Age capital of King Cunobelin (Shakespeare's Cymbeline), Colchester was the target of the Roman invasion in AD 43. Where the Emperor Claudius received its submission, the Romans built a legionary fortress, the framework of which still forms the centre of Colchester. As capital of Roman Britain, Colchester was overrun and burnt by the warrior queen Boudica (aka Boadicea), then rebuilt and ringed by its famous walls. After Rome fell and the Saxon incursions began, the Saxon King Edward the Elder made it the leading town in Essex. The Normans raised its profile higher, when an Abbey, a Priory and a great castle gave it the strategic defence of Eastern England. It was besieged only once, when King John was in conflict with his barons over Magna Carta. For 400 years Colchester's cloth industry placed it among the top fifteen towns in the kingdom. It saw Protestants burnt at the stake, withstood a Civil War siege, was ravaged by plague and stood in the front line against invasion, first by Napoleon, then by the Kaiser, then by Hitler. An important engineering town since Victorian times, it is today a regional shopping centre, a major garrison town and a popular tourist attraction. This authoritative, readable and well illustrated work, from a professional historian, will doubtless become the standard work on this ancient town for at least the next half-century.

303 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 1, 2004

Reviews

[Stevens · Rating 4 out of 5]

An incredibly interesting, in-depth historical deep dive into my hometown from its inception through to today, touching on everything from the Romans, to the Saxons, Normans, Vikings etc. and higher-level events like the Reformation, Glorious Revolution, Black Death, Civil War, the Napoleonic and World Wars that trickled down and affected the every day life of Colchester’s residents.

Was hesitant to say but I gave it 4 star (instead of 5) because it had quite a number of surprising spelling mistakes/ incorrect names of people that made me lose a bit of confidence in what I was reading.

For example, it was not William Marshall, but Thomas Marshall (also known as John Beche) who famously upheld Roman Catholicism during the Reformation and was consequently hanged and disembowelled for refusing to hand over St. John’s Abbey to the King.

It was not the ‘Fresians’, but ‘Frisians’ (from Frisia) that were the coastal Dutch and German ethnic group who settled in Essex.

Not ‘Aleric I’ but ‘Alaric I’ who became the first king of the Visigoths and was responsible for the sacking of Rome in 410, leading to the fall of the Roman Empire.

It was John Laurence who was the first man in Colchester to be burnt alive for his Protestant beliefs under Queen Mary I.

It did concern me how many other mistakes there may have been that I wouldn’t have known… but nevertheless I thoroughly enjoyed the book and learnt a great deal about the legendary, the iconic, the historical wonder, the timeless masterpiece (shall I stop here? I’ll stop here) that is the town of Colchester.

Proud to be a Colcestrian, innit bruv.