Dungroamin 2024
The holiday that smells but has no taste
Saturday 1st June
We assembled early for breakfast as we were aiming to join a guided walk in the town centre at 10:30am. As we entered the Balkerne Gate next door we were asked if we had booked. We said yes we had pre-booked our breakfasts. Yes, but have you booked a seat in the restaurant? It seemed that booking a breakfast with Premier Inns did not necessarily provide you with a seat to eat it!!!
Common sense eventually prevailed and we were shown to some seats. The establishment was additionally unusual in that there was unlimited cooked food but you had to order it. There was quite a wait, but we managed to get finished in time to leave by our target of 9:00am.
Unlike in Scarborough last year, the Park and Ride bus decided to pick us up.
The entrance to Colchester Castle.
It turned out by pure chance that the Premier Inn we had chosen was very close to the Colchester Park and Ride so it did not take us long to decide to use it despite our poor track record with buses.
Our first challenge of the day, was to get out of the Premier Inn car park. A tour around took place before the correct exit route was located.
Amazingly our trip on the Park and Ride bus went so swimmingly we arrived in Colchester early, to find that there was no longer a 10:30am tour but there was an 11:00am one.
The delay gave us time to visit the cafe in the castle park for morning coffee before we returned to meet up with our guide.
Colchester occupies the site of Camulodunum, the first major city in Roman Britain and its first capital. Colchester therefore claims to be Britain's first city.
Our tour by foot lasted 2 hours and was very interesting although rather tiring. We ended up near the Balkerne Gate (the real one, not the pub) where we quickly located the Mercury Theatre cafe for lunch.
After lunch, we walked back to the castle where we investigated the Hollytrees Museum which houses local history exhibits in a 1718 house. We opted out of a £4 entry fee in favour or the free-to-enter Natural History Museum across the road.
Following this, we made our way back to the Park and Ride bus stop.
The Park and Ride car park had been one junction along the A12, so it was surely going to be straight forward to retrace our steps - no need to use the satnav. But little did we realise the strangeness of the road junctions on the A12. Before we knew it, we were bombing down the A120 on our way to Harwich!! And it was miles to the next junction to turn round.
The Castle itself which houses a museum which we did not have time to visit and/or we were too miserly to cough up the £12.75 to get in.
St Botolph's Priory.
Firstsite Art Gallery.
The Town Hall.
Tymperleys is a historic town house built in the 1490s for a councillor of the Duke of Norfolk. It now offers a seasonal menu, cakes, cream teas and wines in a walled garden.
A present day approach to health and safety.
The Balkerne Gate is the largest surviving gateway in Roman Britain and was built where the Roman road from Londinium intersected the town wall of Camulodunum.
Jumbo Water Tower is a water tower at the Balkerne Gate in Colchester, Essex. Charles Clegg (c.1855-c.1904), the Borough Surveyor and Engineer, designed the structure. The tower is 40.1m tall overall and contains 1.2 million red bricks. The tower was nicknamed ’Jumbo’ after the London Zoo elephant as a term of derision in 1882 by Reverend John Irvine who was annoyed that the tower dwarfed his nearby rectory at St. Mary-at-the-Walls.
You see some strange sights in the High Street.
The Wooden Fender.
For our evening meal were were booked into The Wooden Fender in nearby Ardleigh.
What a difference to our meal the night before. This pub was superb - a good menu, good food, good beer and good service.
It was an unusual evening as everybody in the pub seem to be celebrating their birthday and there were candles and happy birthday songs every few minutes.
This pub was so good we ended up, due to a communication mix up, overtipping - unusual for us - the overtipping that is, not the communication mix up.