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The Red Lion Hotel |
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Rooms From: £ 45
High Street, Colchester, CO1 1DJ
The Red Lion Hotel is an historical Grade 1 listed building (c1465) located in the town centre of historic Colchester. The hotel is one of the oldest inns in East Anglia and has been described as `a fine example of Tudor England`.
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The Marks Tey Hotel |
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Rooms From: £ 69
London Road, Colchester, CO6 1DU
This modern Hotel & Leisure Club located to the South of Colchester is the premier hotel in North Essex. The Hotel features 110 bedrooms which have been carefully designed with your personal comfort in mind.
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The George of Colchester |
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Rooms From: £ 80
116 High Street, Colchester, CO1 1TD
A 500 year-old coaching house, steeped in history, located in the heart of Colchester, Englands oldest recorded town. The Hotel reflects the style and elegance of a bygone era.
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Wivenhoe House Hotel |
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Rooms From: £ 58.5
Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, CO4 3SQ
Elegantly refurbished and offering all the comfort and hospitality of a country house, Wivenhoe House is an 18th century manor delightfully situated in its own parkland grounds on the edge of Colchester
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The Rose & Crown Hotel - Best Western |
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Rooms From: £ 65
East street, Colchester, CO1 2TZ
The Rose and Crown Hotel, a 14th century posting house, lovingly restored over the centuries to a modern day hotel. It is located within walking distance of Colchester town centre and accessible to the historic sights of East Anglia.
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If you visit anywhere in Essex, it should be COLCHESTER , an agreeable town with a castle, a university and a large army base, fifty miles or so northeast of London. More than anything else, Colchester prides itself on being England's oldest town and there is documentary evidence of a settlement here as early as the fifth century BC. By the first century AD, the town was the region's capital and when the Romans invaded Britain in 43 AD they chose Colchester (Camulodunum) as their new capital, though it was soon eclipsed by London, becoming a retirement colony for legionaries instead. A millennium later, the conquering Normans built one of their mightiest strongholds in Colchester, but the conflict that most marked the town was the Civil War. In 1648, Colchester was subjected to a gruelling siege by the Parliamentarian army led by Lord Fairfax; after three months, during which the population ate every living creature within the walls, the town finally surrendered and the Royalist leaders were promptly executed for their pains.
Today, Colchester makes a good base for further explorations of the surrounding countryside - particularly the Stour valley towns of Constable country, within easy reach to the north.
Most visitors start off at the town's rugged, honey-coloured Castle , the perfect introduction to Colchester's long history, set in attractive parkland, which stretches down to the River Colne. Begun less than ten years after the Battle of Hastings, it boasts a phenomenally large keep - the largest in Europe at the time - built on the site of the defunct Roman temple. The castle's museum (Mon-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun 11am-5pm; £3.90) contains the best of the region's Romano-British archeological finds, although, apart from a fine bronze of Mercury, the messenger of the gods, this amounts to little more than a smattering of coins, tombstones, statues and mosaics. The museum also covers the Boudicca revolt and the 1648 siege, and you can sign up for a guided tour of the underground tunnels (45min; £1.20), which give access to the foundations of the Roman temple and the Norman chapel and walls - parts not otherwise accessible to regular visitors. Outside, down towards the river in Castle Park is a section of the old Roman walls , whose battered remains are still visible around much of the town centre.
The castle stands at the eastern end of the wide, and largely pedestrianized, High Street , which lies pretty much along the same route as it did in Roman times. The most arresting building here is the flamboyant Town Hall , built in 1902 and topped by a statue of St Helena, mother of Constantine the Great and daughter of "Old King Cole" of nursery-rhyme fame - after whom, some say, the town was named. Immediately north of the High Street is the so-called Dutch Quarter , where Flemish refugees settled in the sixteenth century giving a boost to the town's ailing cloth trade. The area's lofty buildings still make this a pleasant place to stroll, particularly along West and East Stockwell streets. South of the High Street, much of the medieval street plan has been subsumed within a vast open-air shopping precinct, complete with three separate indoor shopping centres and an open-air market held every Friday and Saturday in Vineyard Street.
With a little time to spare, it's worth strolling down East Hill , a continuation of the High Street east of the castle. Splendid Georgian houses line the top end of the hill, one of which - opposite the tourist office - is now the Hollytrees Museum (Mon-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun 11am-5pm; free), containing a modest collection of costumes, toys, domestic items, trade implements and decorative arts from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. Over the road at the Minories (April-Sept Mon-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun 11am-5pm; rest of year closed Sun; free) another Georgian exterior conceals a contemporary arts centre, with a changing exhibition programme, a garden and a great café. Just along the street, Priory Galleries sells the work of local artists, and is well worth a look.
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