Colchester Castle

Put your hand flat against the wall in front of you. The surface is rough and uneven, a patchwork of grey stone and thin red tiles laid in layers. Some of those tiles are far older than the castle itself. They were made by Roman hands, centuries before any Norman king arrived. You are touching two empires at once, and the castle hides neither one.

Welcome to Colchester Castle. What stands here today is the great stone keep, the central tower of a Norman fortress. It is wide, low and heavy, more like a cliff than a fairy-tale castle. That shape is part of its story. Once it stood much taller. Over the centuries it has been a royal stronghold, a prison, a ruin, a quarry, a gentleman's library and finally a museum.

To understand why it sits on this exact spot, we need to go back almost a thousand years before the Normans. Colchester was the Roman town of Camulodunum. It is often described as the first capital of Roman Britain. After the Roman invasion, a grand temple was built here to honour the emperor Claudius, who was worshipped as a god after his death. It was a symbol of Roman power, raised in the heart of conquered land.

That temple did not survive in peace for long. Around AD 60, the Iceni queen Boudica led a revolt against Roman rule. Her forces attacked Camulodunum. The Roman historian Tacitus wrote that settlers took refuge inside the temple, and that it fell after a siege. The town burned. Archaeologists in Colchester still find a dark layer of burnt debris from that destruction, a scorch mark in the ground under the modern streets.

Here is the first surprise. The temple's massive stone foundations were never fully removed. When the Normans came to build their keep, they used that Roman platform as a ready-made base. The castle literally stands on top of the temple. Beneath your feet are vaults inside those ancient foundations. On guided tours, visitors can sometimes go down into them and stand inside the core of a Roman sacred building.

The Norman keep was begun in the years after 1066, under William the Conqueror. It follows a design similar to the White Tower at the Tower of London. But Colchester's keep is bigger. In fact, it is the largest keep the Normans ever built in Europe. Its footprint is noticeably larger than its famous cousin in London. The builders wanted the people of Essex to see clearly who now ruled them.

Look again at the walls and you will see how practical those builders were. They did not have to quarry everything from scratch. The ruins of Roman Colchester lay all around them, full of brick, tile and stone. So they reused it. In places the tiles are set in slanting rows, a pattern known as herringbone, like the bones of a fish. The recycled Roman material gives the walls their warm, striped look.

For centuries the keep served as the seat of royal authority in the area, and later as the county prison. That role brought it into some of the darkest chapters of English history. In 1645, during the witch trials of the English Civil War period, the self-styled Witchfinder General, Matthew Hopkins, questioned accused women here. Many prisoners held within these walls suffered terrible conditions, and some never left alive.

The Civil War left a deeper mark on the town. In 1648, Colchester endured a long siege. Royalist forces held the town while Parliament's army surrounded it. People inside were reduced to near starvation. When the Royalists finally surrendered, two of their commanders, Sir Charles Lucas and Sir George Lisle, were executed by firing squad just outside the castle. A memorial stone marks the place, and many visitors walk past without noticing it.

Here is the second surprise. The keep you see is only part of what was built. It once rose higher, with upper floors above the present roofline. In 1683, the castle was sold to a man who planned to pull it down and sell the materials. He used explosives and tools to strip away the upper levels. But the walls were so thick and strong that the work did not pay. He gave up, and the lower part of the keep survived.

In the eighteenth century, the ruin found a kinder owner. Charles Gray, a local lawyer and politician, repaired parts of the building and turned it into something closer to a place of learning. He added a small domed structure on one of the towers, which still rises above the walls today. The grounds were laid out as gardens. Later, these grounds became Castle Park, the green space that wraps around the keep where you are standing now.

Today the keep holds a museum that tells Colchester's long story, from its Iron Age tribes through Roman rule, the Normans, the Civil War and beyond. Inside, you can see Roman objects found across the town, from everyday pottery to fine tombstones. Many visitors are struck by how close these finds were dug up — often under shops, car parks and gardens only a short walk from the castle.

When you step back outside, give yourself a moment. Stand at a distance in the park and take in the whole keep. Notice how the colour of the walls changes in different light, the red tiles glowing when the sun is low. Listen to the park around you — dogs, children, the wind in the trees. Then remember that under the grass, the paths and the castle itself lies the burnt and buried floor of a Roman city.