The Colchester Archaeologist

In 1906, museum curator Arthur Wright nipped out into the Castle Park to eat his lunch. This was not surprising since that summer was truly a scorcher. In fact September of that year saw temperatures in the UK reach a corking 36 degrees, which for that month is still the highest [read more…]

After a good summer, the Roman Circus Visitor is now closed for the winter. If you have visited us this year, many thanks for your interest and support. If you have never been before, well please consider calling in next year and having a look around. We will be open [read more…]

We are always pleased to get feedback from our visitors so we offer them forms to fill in if they want to. This is what they told us this year. Nothing here omitted, added or edited! As usual, the lack of decent signage was highlighted by our visitors as the [read more…]

Natasha, Fiona, Gerry, and Howard, the four members of Quattro Amici, accompanied by Joe Richardson on keyboard did us proud in the Roman Circus Centre with their sell-out concert last night when we were treated to two hours of songs chosen to suit all tastes. In particular I loved The Flower Duet (Lakmé), a famous [read more…]

National Heritage Open Day at the Roman Circus Centre was a free fun day for all the family. Tours, quizzes, games, and more were all on offer. About twenty-nine volunteers and archaeologists all helped to make the day a success. The centre was buzzing and visitors seemed to like it. [read more…]

An evaluation followed by an excavation on the northern side of Coggeshall has uncovered three ring-ditches. Unlike the ring-ditches recently excavated in northern Colchester which were possible burial places, these were almost certainly prehistoric house sites – with the ring-ditches being ‘eaves-drip gullies’ – drains around circular houses, perhaps enhanced [read more…]

Since 2011 we have been evaluating and excavating sites in advance of the Colchester North housing development. In 2017 we excavated a medieval pottery-producing site near Cants Rose Fields (now ‘Chesterwell’), and we have recently moved south to excavate a site identified by the 2011 evaluation as a possible ‘ring-ditch’ [read more…]