---

 

 

Colchester Leasing

Did You Know?

Colchester is a town in the county of Essex, in southeast England. In the Castle Park, Colchester Castle is a huge Norman keep, built on the foundations of a Roman temple. Its museum displays artefacts up to 2,500 years old. 

Britain’s first city, Colchester, has the oldest town walls in Britain. Built by the Romans after Boudicca wrecked the place in AD 60, about a mile of the wall is still there.

 Colchester has Britain’s only military ‘glasshouse’, where, during National Service days (1946-1960), hard men did porridge before dismissal from the Army. Graduates included the Kray Twins, one of whom broke the jaw of a corporal who shouted at him. More recently it was trialled as a ‘boot camp’ for naughty boys, before they invented ASBOs.

The best known nursery rhyme in the world, ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star’, was written by Jane Taylor, aged 23, in 1806 in her attic, which still exists in Stockwell Street, Colchester.

The Oldest Hot Cross Bun in the world was baked in Wyre Street, Colchester, on Good Friday 1807 and is now rock hard. Owned by a couple in Wormingford, it beats one kept in the British Museum, baked in 1869.

Probably the oldest visible church remains in Britain are the foundations of the church built for a Christian cemetery in Roman Colchester about AD 330. To date over 800 hundred burials have been excavated. The church now stands outside the main Police Station.

At 140 years old, the second oldest continuously used site in Britain for making powered engines is the Paxman (now MAN Diesel) Works, opened off Hythe Hill, Colchester, in 1874. They are currently building the Paxman 18VP185. At 5,000 horsepower it is the largest diesel engine, and the only British-designed one, made in Britain.

A Second World War pillbox in Colchester was the unlikely place where the immortal Second World War song, ‘There’ll always be an England’ was written by Ross Parker, co-author of ‘We’ll Meet Again’, in 1940, while stationed at Roman Way Camp. 

Roman Colchester had the only known Roman Chariot Racing Arena (like Ben Hur) in Britain. 470 metres long and 75 metres wide it housed up to 15,000 spectators. The starting gates are being re-created on their original footprint and will soon be a tourist attraction.

Housing over 260 species across 60 acres of parkland and lakes, Colchester Zoo is fantastic example of a modern conservation park. Originally known as Stanway Hall Park Zoo, the Zoo was opened on the 2nd June 1963 by Frank and Helena Farrar and has since been developed into one Europe's most impressive conservation zoos.