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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Colchester
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(96,000 in 1991) Town in Essex on a ridge above the river Colne. Before the Roman invasion it was the capital city of the ruler of much of southern England, Cunobelin; he is better known as Shakespeare's Cymbeline and as the father of *Caratacus. Captured by the emperor *Claudius in AD 44, Colchester (Camulodunum) became the earliest Roman town in Britain. Sections of the Roman walls survive and the temple of Claudius later provided the foundations for the vast Norman keep, the largest in Europe, begun in about 1080. Appropriately the castle now houses a museum of Roman antiquities.
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Colchester later thrived as a centre of the cloth trade, with many Flemish weavers settling there in the 16–17C, and it has long been famous for its oysters from the Colne estuary. There is no historical basis for the theory that Old King Cole, of the nursery rhyme, is reflected in the name of the town.
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