Colchester Castle
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From the front;
entrance is on the far left hand side.
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Front view of the
castle, showing the bridge to the entrance.
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Also from the front
at the same angel as the first picture, but in Spring.
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Colchester Castle
painting, by
Philip & Glyn Martin
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Pioneer ship
outside the Castle, behind the war memorial. Seeing a ship this large
sitting in the centre of Colchester was a truly surreal experience!
Click
here for more photos by the same photographer.
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The rear of the
castle.
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Castellarium Anglicanum / | Colchester Castle TL 999253 |
D. J. Cathcart King (New York; London: Kraus International, 1983) |
"Enormous Norman keep (by far the largest in existence) now severely truncated, and standing inside or on the line of a powerful earthwork bailey or great ringwork. Formerly an outer ward. A small barbican added to the keep, presumably in the 13th century; it had twin gate-turrets and numerous arrow-slits. There is a Roman structure under the foundations of the keep. Built by William I. Taken 1216, and surrendered the same year." p. 143 |
Essex
/ Niklaus Pevsner, revised by Enid Radcliffe (London: Penguin, 1965) [The buildings of England series] |
"Colchester Castle is the largest keep in existence. It measures 151 by 110 ft, that is considerably more than the White Tower in London. It belongs to the same type of late 11th century keeps as the White Tower, the type often called hall keeps, that is buildings much broader than the usual tower keeps and not so high in proportion. Like the White Tower, Colchester has a chapel projecting with an apse, and the main rooms were subdivided, perhaps because, if undivided, they would have been too large to cover them with timber ceilings. The keep was originally faced with ..." p. |
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