MAKING HISTORY

EXPLORE

ESSEX

Bordering on both London and the France-facing coast, the position of this south-east English county has ensured that it has played a major part in our nation’s history.

Colchester – or Camulodunum as it was – is the oldest recorded town in Britain and briefly became a provincial capital under Roman rule in AD43. Essex itself dates back to the Anglo-Saxon era, the period between the end of Roman occupation in the 5th century and the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. The name is a corruption of the Old English word Eastseaxe – literally, ‘East Saxons’ – and reflects the Saxon raiding parties that settled here during this time.

That period came to a dramatic end when William the Conqueror defeated King Harold II at the pivotal Battle of Hastings in neighbouring Kent, and the dethroned king was buried in a churchyard of Essex’s Waltham Abbey. American history owes a great debt