Colchester Museums

@colmuseums.bsky.social

We're renowned for Romans, cuckoo about clocks and wild for animals! Custodians of Colchester Castle, Hollytrees Museum and Colchester's Natural History Museum.

@colmuseums.bsky.social

This Regal usher probably helped thousands of Colchester cinema-goers find their seats. Saturday morning pictures. Weekly cliff-hangers. Different ticket prices depending on where you sat. A whole generation growing up at the movies. What do you remember about the cinema growing up?

Uniformed doorman in a long double-breasted coat and peaked cap standing outside a theater entrance beside a poster reading "Carol Levis Discoveries — TO-DAY."
@colmuseums.bsky.social

Be part of something prehistoric! We're looking for volunteer Discover Gallery Champions to help welcome visitors to our major Discover exhibition at Hollytrees Museum, home to a spectacular six metre dinosaur skeleton that has never been displayed anywhere else in the world.

Promotional image featuring two dinosaur skull fossils against a pale blue background, surrounded by green fern leaves. Text on the image reads: “Be part of something prehistoric” and “volunteers.cimuseums.org.uk”.
@colmuseums.bsky.social

A historic building holds the evidence. A brilliant guide brings its stories to life. Visitors have described our guides as knowledgeable, fascinating, enthusiastic, courteous and exceptional storytellers.

Woman in a red medieval-style gown guiding a seated group of children through a dim brick vaulted cellar; overlaid testimonial reads "The guides are fabulous!" with five stars.
@colmuseums.bsky.social

Using immersive audio and site-specific performance, this performance takes you beyond the familiar history to explore the woman behind the crown, in a story of power, betrayal and quiet resilience.

Find performance times and book with Suffolk Community Libraries: buff.ly/tz70Hqo

@colmuseums.bsky.social

Love Tudor history? This one’s worth a trip to Ipswich. Our friends at Suffolk Community Libraries are hosting KATHARINE, inspired by the story of Katharine of Aragon, at Ipswich County Library this November.

Promotional poster for "Katharine in Suffolk Libraries," an immersive audio experience about Katharine of Aragon, featuring a young woman in a red medieval dress gazing upward against a golden, cathedral-arched background.
@colmuseums.bsky.social

Colchester is one of those rare places where you can literally see nearly a millennium of history in a single doorway. The structure is late Anglo-Saxon (mid-11th century), but the distinctive red bricks are Roman spolia, salvaged from buildings erected centuries earlier.

@colmuseums.bsky.social

Archaeologists found it buried beneath the floor of a Roman house that was then destroyed by fire. Nearly 2,000 years later, we're looking at the contents of someone's emergency valuables stash: rings, earrings, bracelets and coins hidden in the hope of coming back for them.

@colmuseums.bsky.social

The really mind-bending thing about the Fenwick Treasure isn't just that it's gold and silver jewellery. It's that it was probably hidden in a hurry during the Boudican revolt of AD 61 and never reclaimed.

@colmuseums.bsky.social

It has certainly had a few different chapters since then! The building is still instantly recognisable though, which is probably why so many people spotted it in this photograph.

Older posts