I've been through Colchester several times and would like to visit there someday. I've researched it on the web with very little luck concerning much more information than the name of the town, population, etc. The city web page is mostly about jobs, housing, etc. and has little information about the town's history and what, if anything, there is to see there. Have you been there? What can you teach me? Thanks!

Colchester is in Vermont, close to Burlington. They have 2 McDonalds, 2 Burger Kings, 1 Pizza Hut, 1 Wendy's, 1 Taco Bell, 1 Frendly's. All staffed by obese, intellectually challenged people.

Colchester became a Roman colony under Claudius, in AD 50. Its oysters soon became famous and are still so today. After the Conquest, the town became the site of the largest Norman keep and one of the richest priories in Europe. The oysters remained the main source of wealth until the Middle Ages, when wool took over. Today, Colchester is still the epitome of the sex trade in the economically depressed South and East of England.<BR><BR>Colchester castle was built with 4-m thick walls on the vaults of the Roman Temple of Claudius, its massive dimensions (46 m by 34 m) are one and a half times those of the White Tower in the Tower of London. It is now a museum housing one of the largest collections in Britain of Roman antiquities gathered from one site. <BR><BR>The 3 m-thick Roman walls encircling the town centre are made of cemented stone between brick bonding courses. They are best viewed from Balkerne Hill, where Balkerne Gate, with arches and flanking towers, extends 9 m in front of the wall.<BR><BR>Only the skeleton remains of the 12C priory, yet it gives an idea of its size. Built, like the castle, of Roman brick, only the piers, west front (with the earliest circular windows in Britain) and the 37 m nave now remain.<BR><BR>

Jack:- I think you flipped out there for a moment..."Colchester is still the epitome of the sex trade in the economically depressed South and East of England."<BR><BR>What?!?!<BR><BR>the sex trade?<BR>economically depressed?<BR><BR>Or is this all meant to be very funny and I'm just not clever enough to get it?<BR><BR>Please respond... my views of Essex have been irrevocably altered.

Colchester was for a long time an important military base, indeed I believe it held (maybe still does) a military prison....maybe that has something to do with.<BR><BR>I would have thought the centre for the sex trade for the South and East would inevitably be the less savoury parts of London - but maybe "Jack" thinks that's only for the well-off rather than the economically (as opposed to emotionally) depressed. For what it's worth, yes there are pockets of economic deprivation and depression in the SE of England, including within London itself...