3-021-688 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Town and Camp of Colchester: the Abbey Gate, 1869. 'The interesting town of Colchester...is, beyond all question, one of the most ancient places of historical importance in Britain, as it was the Roman colony of Camulodunum...St. John's Abbey, founded in the year 1096, upon the site of an old Saxon hermitage, where miracles were rife, was a convent of Benedictine monks, the chief of which, a mitred peer and baron of the realm, had a seat in Parliament and exercised a civil and criminal jurisdiction over his neighbours at Colchester. But the last Abbot, John Riche, was hanged at Greenstead for refusing to submit to King Henry VIII. and to surrender his estates, in accordance with the policy of disestablishment and disendowment which then prevailed. The abbey building itself has been totally destroyed; a beautiful gateway, of much less ancient date, ornamented with sculptured figures of saints and angels, is all that remains; it stands in the ground belonging to the new cavalry barracks'. From "Illustrated London News", 1869.