What's Britain's oldest town

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A.� Colchester, Essex, is the country's oldest recorded town. < xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

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Q.� How so

A.� In 77AD, Pliny the Elder, a Roman writer, described the Isle of Anglesey as being 'about 200 miles from Camulodunum, a town in Britain'. This was the Roman name for Colchester and is the first known reference to a fixed settlement in Britain.

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Q.� History

A.� Colchester was founded on the River Colne. The Roman invaders in 43AD soon captured Camulodunum and built a fortress at the settlement. By 49AD the Romans thought they had nothing to fear from the local tribes and they turned the fortress into a civilian settlement for retired soldiers and their families. It was named Colonia Claudia and became first capital of the Roman Province Britannia.

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Q.� And they should have feared the locals

A.� Oh yes. In 54AD the Emperor Claudius - after whom they named the settlement - died and the Romans built the Temple of Claudius in his memory. However, they made the mistake of heavily taxing the local Britons and using them as slaves to build the monument. They also forced the locals to worship there, making the temple an object of great hatred and a symbol of Roman suppression.

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Q.� And this is where Boadicea came in

A.� Yes - or Boudicca as she is now generally known. She became Queen of the Iceni tribe when her father Prasutagus died in 60AD. The Romans, however, refused to recognise Boudicca as his heir. The angry locals rose in revolt and, in alliance with another tribe, the Trinovantes, destroyed the town. The Romans took refuge in the last remaining building - the hated Temple of Claudius. They were captured, tortured, slaughtered and the temple burned. Boudicca and her army moved on to destroy St Albans and London before she became over-confident and was defeated.

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Q.� And back to Colchester

A.� The Romans returned there and built a defensive wall around it. They were to stay there for more than four centuries. Then came the Dark Ages.

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Q.� What happened then

A.� We don't know. That's why they were so dark. When the Normans arrived in 1066, they found Colchester was a busy town and thriving port. Almost straight away they built a stone castle - on the site of the Roman temple - to defend Colchester from Scandinavian invasion.

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Q.� Later history

A.� Colchester was besieged during the Civil War in 1648. The two Royalist commanders, Lucas and Lisle, were executed by firing squad when the castle fell to the Parliamentarians. Nearly 20 years later, about 4,000 townspeople died in the Great Plague.

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Q.� What about architecture Anything interesting

A.� Notably the Dutch Quarter. It is named after a large number of refugees who fled from Flanders to Colchester about 1575 after a failed rebellion against Catholic Spain. Many of these people were skilled weavers who set up a thriving community. Many of their timber-framed houses can still be seen in their original state.

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Q.� Today

A.� It's a great place for shopping and worth visiting for its old buildings and the castle. In 1998 a nationwide poll voted Colchester one of the best places in Britain to live for quality of life and low rates of crime.

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Steve Cunningham