Colchester has been Britain's oldest recorded town since a Roman centurion named Favonius Facilis had his tombstone raised here in AD 50. This tour is not about the Romans, Normans, or earls who commissioned the monuments. It is about the legionaries who mixed the mortar, the Flemish weavers who fled Alva's army and rebuilt a cloth trade in Maidenburgh Street, the monk who told Henry VIII to his face that he would not give up his abbey, the ordinary townspeople who ate cats and dogs through eleven weeks of Civil War siege, the maidservant Mary Last who kept nine Victorians fed and dressed, and the builder's men from Hythe Hill who laid 1.2 million bricks for a water tower their rector called an elephant.
Colchester CastleNorman castle in Colchester, United Kingdom
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Hollytrees MuseumA Georgian townhouse built in 1718 by London builder Thomas Blagden for Elizabeth Cornelisen. Home to the Round family through the 19th century. In 1881, Charles Gray Round's household comprised nine family members served by nine domestic servants. The museum centres its social-history displays on two named working people: Mary Last, one of the Round household's servants, and Isaac Calthrop, a sedan-chair carrier who worked the streets of Colchester in the Georgian era.
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High StreetThe commercial spine of Colchester since Roman times — the decumanus maximus of Camulodunum. At its western end, where Balkerne Lane meets the High Street, Sir Isaac's Walk commemorates Sir Isaac Rebow (1655–1726), the Flemish-descended clothier and MP whose house stood nearby and who was knighted by William III. The High Street has been the market street, the cloth-selling floor, and the political theatre of Colchester for 2,000 years.
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Maidenburgh StreetThe street at the northern edge of the Dutch Quarter, whose plots were leased out by the borough from the 1330s — 18 feet wide, at least one lease requiring the tenant to build a house. By the 15th century, Flemish weavers Edward III had invited to boost the Colchester russets cloth trade had established themselves here; the 1565 Protestant refugees reinforced and expanded the settlement. The street's name may derive from a corruption of 'Maldon-borough' or from a personal name; either way, it was a working street before the Flemish arrived.
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Saint Helen's LaneA short medieval lane running south from the Dutch Quarter to High Street, named for the chapel of St Helen that once stood here — traditionally associated with Helena, daughter of Old King Cole and mother of Constantine. This is the threshold where the Dutch Quarter's working weaving households met the commercial High Street; the lane served as the route along which bays and says cloth moved from the weaver's workshop to the market.
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The Dutch QuarterThe physical core of the Dutch Quarter, the area bounded by West Stockwell Street, Northgate Street, Maidenburgh Street and High Street where Flemish Protestant refugees settled from 1565. The first 11 families — 55 individuals — arrived in that year, fleeing the Duke of Alva's persecution in the Spanish Netherlands. The giveaway is in the architecture: houses on West Stockwell Street have unusually wide ground-floor windows — extra width cut to flood a weaver's loom with natural light. By 1586 the Flemish population of Colchester exceeded 1,290.
