Journal of Proceedings. cix
Monday, August 4th, 1884. Meeting at Colchester
and Mersea.
This was the first visit of the Club to the very interesting town of
Colchester, and every effort was made by our local members and the
Secretaries to render the excursion both enjoyable and instructive.
Members and friends from London and various parts of the county
travelled by train to Colchester. Others went down on the Saturday,
many came in by road, and Mr. Fitch, accompanied by the Secretary and
Mr. H. A. Cole, drove over from Maldon in the early morning, passing,
near Heckford Bridge, near the Roman river in Birch parish, a very fine
spring of water with a wall surrounding it, which attracted considerable
notice.
Fortunately, although it was a Bank Holiday, the trains were not
very late, and at about 11.30 the party assembled in the Keep of
Colchester Castle, where they were received by Mr. J. Horace Round, the
Rev. C. L. Acland, Dr. Laver, Mr. Shenstone and other local friends.
Many eminent antiquaries consider the Castle to be mainly of Norman
age, and if that is so, it is the largest keep in the country referable to
the constructive genius of that stately race, slightly exceeding in
size the " White Tower " in London. Others have supposed it to date
from Saxon, and parts of it even from Roman periods, and there is little
doubt but that it stands upon the site of the temple raised by the
Romans to Claudius Caesar in Cunobelinos' capital of Camulodunon.
It was here that the warlike Ecenian Queen, Boudicca, " bleeding from
the Roman rods," slew the whole colony in her desperate but, to herself
and clan, fatal revolt against foreign cruelty and oppression. The Castle
is almost wholly built of Roman material, the familiar red, hard-baked,
bricks abound in the walls, with the " herring-bone " arrangement in
places ; but to the entrance at the south is a fine portal, which, in com-
mon with the plan and other characters of the building, is considered by
most authorities to be Norman. One great attraction in the Castle is
the collection of Roman and Romano-British relics which is housed
there, belonging jointly to the Corporation and to the Essex Archaeologi-
cal Society. This is no mere so-called " Local Museum " of the stuffed
crocodile and Indian spear type, but a series of high historical,
artistic and archaeological merit; and if (as is most heartily to be wished)
the project for purchasing and adding to it Mr. Joslin's unique
gathering of antiquities illustrating the religious, social and domestic
life of the colonists of Camulodunon during the four centuries of Roman
occupation is successfully carried out, it will become absolutely
unrivalled in completeness and value as a local collection. It is no secret
that much of the ware in Mr. Alma-Tadema's interesting picture in the
1884 Academy Exhibition—" Hadrian visiting a Romano-British Pottery.''
—was drawn from examples in the Colchester Museum.
Mr. J. Horace Round " conducted " at the Castle, commenting briefly