Colchester Travel Guide

Colchester is a town in Essex, East Anglia.

Home to the University of Essex, the Colchester Institute and an Army Garrison, and with its attractive old buildings, Roman wall, castle and proximity to Constable country, Colchester is an interesting place to visit.

Colchester is a picturesque provincial town in the county of Essex, and the geographical region of East Anglia. It is commonly regarded as the "oldest recorded town" in England.

Originally the capital of the Celtic tribe Trinovantes, it was conquered by Claudius's army in ad43 and became the first Roman capital - and Britain's first-ever city. Known as Camulodunum, it was burned to the ground by Boudicca's Iceni tribe approximately two decades later.

Boudicca and her 100,000-strong army were soon defeated, but Colchester never returned to prominence in Roman Britain, becoming instead a settlement for ex-legionnaires.

After the fall of the Roman empire, Colchester then passed through the hands of the Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, Normans and was home to the royalists during the month-long siege of the English Civil War.

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