• Discoveries in Colchester

Colchester Castle has the largest Norman Keep in Europe, 1-1/2 times larger than the White Tower in London. Eudo Dapifer is credited with building the castle keep on the foundations of the Temple of Claudius, a Roman fortress built between 49 and 60 AD. It was the largest Roman temple in Britain.

The castle sits on a rather high hill. The streets around the castle are narrow and there are still many medieval buildings to explore. It’s a thriving town of approximately 122,000 people.

The Castle Museum today focuses almost exclusively on Roman era Colchester and Britain, covering 2,500 years of history. But tucked away in a corner of the museum I found something truly interesting:

It’s a floor tile with an engrailed cross. It was found during a dig at the site of the Parish Church of St Giles, which is within 30 yards of St. John the Baptist Abbey’s gate house.

St. Giles was originally built as part of St. John’s Abbey cemetery approximately 1150 AD. At one recent point, the building was used as the St. John Ambulance depot until 1975 when it was converted into a masonic center. Wik-2

The small explanation beside the tile says:
“Design of Colchester Borough Arms, found at St Giles’s church, 15th century.”

Doing some digging of my own – in the books – I discovered a second engrailed cross was found on a floor tile in a dig at Mary Magdalen Hospital, about a mile southeast of the castle. (EAS, p.122) To this day, there’s a major road called Magdalen Street heading east/west through the southern part of Colchester center city.

The four designs on the tiles are:

  1. A. a four-petalled floret, the petals pointing into the corners and the spaces between filled with tracery.
  2. A six-petalled rosette, with a central dot of white slip and other dots in the field.
  3. A fleur-de-lys, also with dots of slip in the field.
  4. A shield, accentuated on the curved edges by a toothed line, and bearing a cross engrailed in relief, with a triangular frame filled by a counter-relief mouchette in the spandrels.

All four designs are paralleled at St Giles’ church, Colchester.

From the report on the dig, “Plain glazed medieval floor tile dates from the 14th to the 16th century and was associated with high status sites.”

My number 1 is Colchester Castle.

My number 2 is the hospital with St. Mary Magdalene Chapel.

My number 3 is where St. John’s Abbey was.

My number 4  (their number 8) is St. Giles. If you pass that and turn left you will see where St. Johns Abbey was. Almost nothing remains.

The tiny arrow is St. Johns Abbey Gate. It’s still there. It was built to strengthen the abbey after the Peasants’ Revolt.

There is a nice writeup about St. John’s Abbey Gate house on the English Heritage website – Here >>

Sources –

Crossan, Carl, “Excavations at St Mary Magdalen’s Hospital, Brook Street, Colchester” Essex Archaeology and History 34 (2004), 91-154. Author: Carl Crossan, Colchester Archaeological Trust, 12 Lexden Road, Colchester CQ3 3NF
https://colchesterheritage.co.uk/monument/mcc2533

‘Hospitals: St Mary Magdalen, Colchester’, in A History of the County of Essex: Volume 2, ed. William Page and J Horace Round (London, 1907), pp. 184-186. British History Online
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/essex/vol2/pp184-186 [accessed 16 April 2021].

‘Hospitals: St Mary Magdalen, Colchester’, in A History of the County of Essex: Volume 2, ed. William Page and J Horace Round (London, 1907), pp. 184-186. British History Online
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/essex/vol2/pp184-186 [accessed 16 April 2021].

Colchester, St Giles, and St Mary Magdalen’s Hospital
‘Colchester’, in An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in Essex, Volume 3, North East (London, 1922), pp. 20-74. British History Online
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/rchme/essex/vol3/pp20-74 [accessed 16 April 2021].

Parishes, Hamerton
‘Parishes: Hamerton’, in A History of the County of Huntingdon: Volume 3, ed. William Page, Granville Proby and S Inskip Ladds (London, 1936), pp. 66-69. British History Online
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/hunts/vol3/pp66-69 [accessed 16 April 2021].
https://www.british-history.ac.uk/rchme/essex/vol3/pp20-74

Pooley, Laura with Philip Crummy and Rob Masefield
The Roman Circus and St John’s Abbey:
Stage 2 and 3 archaeological mitigation investigations on
Colchester Garrison ‘Alienated Land’ Area B1b, off Napier Road, Colchester, Essex, CO2 7NU July 2015 – October 2017
http://cat.essex.ac.uk/reports/CAT-report-1466.pdf

Wik-1 –
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churches_in_Colchester#St_Giles,_St_John’s_Green