[16] Further flint tools made by hunter gatherers living in the Colne Valley during the Mesolithic have been discovered, including a tranchet axe from Middlewick.

[13] Before the Roman conquest of Britain it was already a centre of power for Cunobelin – known to Shakespeare as Cymbeline – king of the Catuvellauni (c. 5 BC – AD 40), who minted coins there.

[21] Its Celtic name, Camulodunon, variously represented as CA, CAM, CAMV, CAMVL and CAMVLODVNO on the coins of Cunobelinus, means 'the fortress of [the war god] Camulos'.

[22] During the 30s AD Camulodunon controlled a large swathe of Southern and Eastern Britain, with Cunobelin called "King of the Britons" by Roman writers.

[13] Camulodunon is sometimes popularly considered one of many possible sites around Britain for the legendary (perhaps mythical) Camelot of King Arthur,[23] though the name Camelot (first mentioned by the 12th century French Arthurian storyteller Chrétien de Troyes) is most likely a corruption of Camlann, a now unknown location first mentioned in the 10th century Welsh annalistic text Annales Cambriae, identified as the place where Arthur was slain in battle.

[35][36] The director of Colchester Archaeological Trust, Philip Crummy, described the hoard as being of "national importance and one of the finest ever uncovered in Britain".

[38] John Morris suggested that the name Camelot of Arthurian legend was probably a reference to Camulodunum, the capital of Britannia in Roman times.

[40] Since then excavations have revealed some early Saxon occupation, including a fifth-century wooden hut built on the ruins of a Roman house in present-day Lion Walk.

Archaeological excavations have shown that public buildings were abandoned, and is very doubtful whether Colchester survived as a settlement with any urban characteristics after the sixth century.

But the ninth-century Historia Brittonum, attributed to Nennius, mentions the town, which it calls Cair Colun, in a list of the thirty most important cities in Britain.

Colchester's medieval town seal incorporated the biblical text Intravit ihc: in quoddam castellum et mulier quedam excepit illum 'Jesus entered a certain castle and a woman there welcomed him' (Luke 10.38).

[47] Colchester developed rapidly during the later 14th century as a centre of the woollen cloth industry, and became famous in many parts of Europe for its russets (fabrics of a grey-brown colour).

[50] They were famed for the production of "Bays and Says" cloths which were woven from wool and are normally associated with baize and serge although surviving examples show that they were rather different from their modern equivalents.

[50] Flemish refugees in the 1560s brought innovations that revived the local cloth trade, establishing the Dutch Bay Hall for quality control of the textiles for which Colchester became famous.

In the reign of "Bloody Mary" (1553–1558) Colchester became a centre of Protestant "heresy" and in consequence at least 19 local people were burned at the stake at the castle, at first in front, later within the walls.

A pursuing Parliamentary army led by Thomas Fairfax and Henry Ireton surrounded the town for eleven and a half weeks, a period known as the Siege of Colchester.

Daniel Defoe mentions in A tour through England and Wales that the town lost 5259 people[54] to the plague in 1665, "more in proportion than any of its neighbours, or than the city of London".

Between 1797 and 1815 Colchester was the HQ of the Army's Eastern District, had a garrison of up to 6,000, and played a main role in defence against a threatened French or Dutch invasion, At various times it was the base of such celebrated officers as Lord Cornwallis, Generals Sir James Craig and David Baird, and Captain William Napier.

[57] In the 2nd World War Colchester's main significance lay in its infantry and light-anti-aircraft training units, and in the Paxman factory, which supplied a large proportion of the engines for British submarines and landing craft.

In February 1944 a single raider caused a huge fire in the St Botolph's area which gutted warehouses, shops and part of Paxman's Britannia Works.

Colchester and the surrounding area is currently undergoing significant regeneration,[59] including controversial greenfield residential development in Mile End and Braiswick.

It was slated to receive the status formally by letters patent on 12 September 2022,[62][63] however following the death of Queen Elizabeth II, the ceremony was postponed.

[66] Colchester is in one of the driest regions of the United Kingdom with average annual precipitation at 635 mm (25.0 inches), although among the wetter places in Essex.

[70] In 2014 brick and marble columns from the monumental façade of the precinct of the Temple of Claudius were discovered behind the High Street, with plans to make them visible to the public.

Shortly after the publication of the letter, a committee was set up to decide the form of the monument, with several practical schemes favoured by the working class.

[84] Following a visit to the Royal Academy's War Memorial Exhibition,[85] the sculptor Henry Charles Fehr was chosen to undertake the work, for which he was paid £3,000.

Replacing a Victorian town hall which had become unstable,[90] work on the present building started in 1897 to the design of John Belcher in the Edwardian Baroque style,[91] and was opened in 1902 by former prime minister, the Earl of Rosebery.

[97] It is the only town in Britain to have been explicitly mentioned in George Orwell's 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four as being the target of a nuclear attack during the (fictional) Atomic Wars of the 1950s.

Colchester is reputed to be the home of three of the best known English nursery rhymes: 'Old King Cole', 'Humpty Dumpty' and 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star', although the legitimacy of all three claims is disputed.

In 2024, a statue sculpted by Mandy Pratt that shows Taylor and her sister Ann was unveiled in Colchester High Street[98], following a campaign by Sir Bob Russell.