14 Fun Things To Do In Colchester, Essex

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Colchester, Essex is the oldest recorded town in the UK. Yep, older than London! For a short time it was even the capital of Britain, known by its Roman name ‘Camulodunum’. (London was known as Londinium). Some of its historic past can still be seen around the town. It’s is also home to the University of Essex. I’ll be sharing with you some of my favourite things to do in Colchester!

Things To Do in Colchester

Colchester Zoo

As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, I LOVE Colchester Zoo. It’s the biggest zoo in Essex! It’s located on the edge of Colchester, the easiest way to visit is by car. There is however a direct bus that leaves from Colchester bus station and stops right outside of the zoo.

Colchester Zoo is home to many different species from: orangutans, chimpanzees, giraffes, elephants, tigers, lions and many more. Visitors can enjoy watching various animal enrichment programmes and take part in the daily elephant and giraffe feeds.

Colchester Castle

The part of Colchester Castle that you can see from the outside is a Norman built castle that’s actually only around 300 years old. Inside you’ll find displays and artefacts about life in Essex across 2000 years of history. My favourite part is the tour of the underground vaults and up on to the roof of the castle.

The guided tour is an additional fee to the standard entrance price. The underground vaults date back almost 2000 years and are the original vaults of the Roman temple that used to stand in its place. Here you’ll learn more about the history of the actual building (rather than the lifestyle). You can see a picture of what the castle would have looked like when it was a temple, which is really interesting!

When going up to the roof, your guide will explain why castles have spiral staircases as part of their defence. You may even be asked to take part in a demonstration! On the roof of the castle, there is a tree that signifies the end of the Battle of Waterloo, which ended in 1815. Various places in the local community have been nurturing cuttings from the tree. So if the one at the castle was to die or get damaged, it can be replaced with part of the original.

Another experience at Colchester Castle is ‘Escape At The Castle’, a 45 minute escape room game. It’s aimed at visitors over 11 years old and require a group of 4-8 people.

Castle Park

Castle Park is obviously the grounds in which Colchester Castle sits, but it deserves its own mention. The park is a popular place for people to relax on a nice day. You’ll often see college and university students hanging out on their lunch break etc. They are free to enter and have plenty of open spaces and play equipment for children. There are loads of friendly squirrels too!

‘Pay to play’ attractions in Castle Park include: a boating lake (£2.50 for a 20 minute peddle boat hire) and ‘Putt In The Park’ crazy golf (£9 for an adult, £7 for a child under 15).

Several different events are held at Castle Park through the year, such as: a classic car show and music festivals. The free 5K ParkRun events take place weekly every Saturday at 9am (with a second location at Highwoods Country Park).

More Colchester History

Roman City Walls/Balkerne Gate

Part of Colchester is still surrounded by Roman ‘city walls’. The best place to see these is along Balkerne Hill. An arch was built in 49AD with the city walls being built around 60AD, around the same time as the castle vaults. It was the largest Roman Gateway in Britain.

Featured in the photo above is Jumbo Water Tower, a grade II listed building. It was completed in 1883 and is constructed from 1,200,000 bricks. It was named after the elephant that lived at London Zoo in the 1860s before being sold to P.T.Barnam as a circus act.

St Botolph’s Priory

Another piece of history is the site of St Botolph’s Priory that dates back to the late 11th century. The priory of St Julian and St Botolph was a house for Augustinian Canons, a group of men in the Roman Catholic Church. It closed as a priory in 1536 but continued being used as a church until the 1640s.

It now stands as ruins but is free to visit. It can be found just behind Colchester Town train station and stands alongside the newer St Botolph’s Church.

Colchester Shopping

There are plenty of options for shopping in Colchester. What’s great is that Colchester Castle and Castle Park are just at the end of the High Street, making it easy to enjoy both at the same time!

Along with the shops along the High Street (and many other roads branching off around the town!), there are two main shopping centres. Culver Square Shopping Centre and Lions Walk Shopping Centre. Shops include: Primark, Lush, H&M and Superdry.

Sir Isaacs Walk is another cute little street with lots of smaller shops and little cafes.

Outside of the town centre, there are various shops scattered all around Colchester. I like The Range, which is just off of Cowdray Avenue. Closer to the zoo is Tollgate Centre Shopping Park. This is where you’ll find larger shops like Carpetright, Dreams, Harveys, Argos, Next/Next Home and Sports Direct.

Escape Colchester

“Escape Colchester” has 4 escape rooms. We did the ‘Witchcraft and Wizardry room which very Harry Potter-y themed, without actually being affiliated with Harry Potter (copyrights and all that!). Team size is recommended between 2 and 6. We had 5 which was an OK number. Sometimes too many cooks spoil the broth but sometimes extra heads give you different perspectives!

Walks In Colchester: Questo Self Guided Tour

Similar to an escape room, Questo walking tours are a more budget friendly version option which you play from an app on a smart phone. If you catch a game in beta testing stages they are free, or it’s around £4.99 to unlock a game. I played ‘Historic Colchester: A Roman Visitor‘ and it took just over an hour to complete. It mixes a fiction story with real life facts about locations around Colchester.

There are challenges you need to complete to progress to the next part of the story!

Colchester Entertainment Venues

Colchester has a couple of different entertainment venues that attract a variety of different artists. The Colchester Arts Centre is a pretty unique venue, it’s in the decommissioned church of St Mary at the Walls. I’ve seen the improv comedy group ‘The Noise Next Door’ here a couple of times!

Charter Hall is another venue with comedians such as: Jimmy Carr, John Bishop and Jason Manford. Travellers, Simon Reeve and Ben Fogle are examples of ‘an audience with’ type shows. The Dreamboys has a 2020 tour date at Charter Hall too. Colchester Stadium hold a lot of tribute music nights.

Go Bananas Indoor Play Area

Go Bananas is another one of my childhood favourites. It’s a large indoor soft play area. They also run adult parties after it closes to younger visitors. As well as free play time, you get use of the climbing walls, sumo suits and they create team building challenges and competitions. So much fun!

A new addition opposite Go Bananas is Jump Street, which is a trampoline park. There’s another larger Jump Street location in Chelmsford.

Leisure World Swimming Pool

I’m originally from Braintree, where we have a large swimming pool. But when I was younger we used to go to Leisure World purely for the Leisure Pool! They do have regular swimming pools too but the Leisure Pool is a completely separate area. It has a couple of tube slides, a lazy river, a shallow children’s play pool, a couple of jacuzzis and my favourite, the Rapids.

The Rapids are outdoors (cold dash from the door to the water!) and there is a height requirement. You do need to be a strong swimming as it finishes up back indoors in a whirlpool. It’s one of the closest things to a water park in Essex!

Aqua Springs

Aqua Springs is next door to Leisure World. You have to be over the age of 16 to visit. There are several large hydrotherapy pools and steam rooms. The Aromatherapy Room is nice. I couldn’t stand the Salt Inhalation Room for more than 5 minutes. It does have health benefits, it’s suppose to be good for respiratory and sinus problems, but it burned my eyes.

As with every steam room and sauna, there is a cool pool (which is bearable) and a cold plunge pool (which I was too chicken for). I did however do the cool water shower which is a dump bucket with a chain.

For an additional fee, normal spa treatments are offered, such as massages, facials and manicures.

Highwoods Country Park

As mentioned above, Highwoods Country Park is the location of Colchester’s 2nd weekly Parkrun. The car park isn’t huge (this is where the toilet block & gift shop is) but the park is very big! There are many different walking trails through the woodland area and across fields and around a large fishing large. Children will enjoy climbing on the play equipment hidden in the woods.

In 2017 I took park in the 5k Bubble Rush fun run that was held at Highwoods. Typically they chose a route that was almost all uphill though! Exhausting!

Dedham Vale

A 20 minute drive from Colchester town (and still part of the Colchester district) is Dedham Vale. Dedham Vale is an Area Of Natural Beauty. A fun thing to do is to hire a row boat from The Boathouse and spend some time rowing along the River Stour! The Kitchen is a lovely riverside cafe/restaurant that also offer ‘row and dine’ packages on select days. On the opposite side of the river (actually in Suffolk!), there’s a large field which is a perfect place to relax on a hot day and paddle in the river. Alternatively you can walk just over 1 mile to Flatford Mill.

Visiting Colchester

Colchester is located just off the A12 and in easily reached by car. There are many different pay and display car parks around the town. A couple of the ones I use the most are: St Mary’s (along Balkerne Hill) and St John’s (just around the corner).

There’s also a Park and Ride just off the A12, close to Colchester United football ground. Parking is free and bus fares are £3 for an adult and £1 for a child (under 16yrs).

Colchester has two train stations, Colchester (North Hill) and Colchester Town. The town station is a branch line and it closer to the shops and castle. Colchester station is on the main line so is serviced by more trains.

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