A Roman chariot racing track (circus) was recently discovered to the south of Colchester city centre. This had gone unnoticed for nearly two thousand years because no actual building material was above ground. It is the only one of its kind in northern Europe and bears witness to the huge significance of Colchester during Roman times. To celebrate this discovery, Francis Terry has designed a proposal to surround the original racetrack with terraced housing and rebuild the original starting gates.

Below are his thoughts on the proposal.

Twenty years ago, a Roman chariot racing track was discovered to the south of Colchester city centre. This had gone unnoticed for nearly two thousand years because no actual building material was above ground. Following the end of the Roman occupation of Britain, stone and brick from the site was taken and reused for building Medieval Colchester. The result is that virtually no material remains on the site at all, even much of the foundations have been removed.

In its day this would have been a structure of national importance, perhaps the only one of its type in the country. Constructed in around 125AD, possibly under the orders of Emperor Hadrian, who was the man responsible for some of the most celebrated works of architecture of all history including, the Pantheon, Castel Sant’ Angelo and Hadrian’s Villa.

I became interested in this site back in 2010 when I joined a campaign to buy the Sergeants Mess which sits at the west end of the circus. It was felt that this would make an excellent visitors’ centre as it would have the site of the starting gates within its garden. Unfortunately, this did not happen due to lack of funds.

I revisited the site in 2023 and saw the current interpretation of the starting gates which consists of ten recently built brick piers, all about 3 ft high, which show the position of where the starting gates once were. Though I salute the effort in creating these brick and stone piers, they have not gone far enough.

I then thought of the simple idea of rebuilding the starting gates in their entirety, in their original position using the same materials the Romans used and the same construction method. As a classical architect I am familiar with Roman construction, rules of classical proportion and the practical use of load bearing brick and stone structures. So, I drew out what I imagined the starting gates would look like. With my experience and knowledge of Roman architecture I came up with a plausible design. This was no great work of genius as loadbearing masonry construction with the use of brick and stone, the design becomes the inevitable consequence of these factors. I can be very sure the starting gates look similar to this, although there is no record of their structure.

From these drawings I asked a stone mason to provide a price to carry out the work. He came back with a detailed breakdown which put the price at £2 million.

I am now in the position of trying to get the necessary funds to start the rebuilding.

I feel that this venture is hugely important to the future of Colchester. With the problems facing town and city centres with shopping going online, the built heritage becomes increasingly important to keep these places vibrant and active. We have an opportunity to give both locals and tourists something to celebrate.

When Germany flattened Warsaw during the war, the attitude was to rebuild it as close as possible to what it had been. Where photographic evidence was missing, they used the 18th century paintings of Bernardo Bellotto to fill the gaps and, at times improve what had been. This creative rebuilding programme was an important act to give the people of Warsaw a feeling of belonging and civic pride.

Colchester was a town of immense importance during the Roman period. It was to Colchester that the Emperor Claudius came all the way from Rome (possibly on Elephants) to receive the surrender of the British tribal chiefs. At the time of Vesuvius’s eruption, the population of Pompeii was 10 to 20,000, Colchester at its height had a population of 30,000. It is an understatement that the significance of this history is not matched by what can be seen of Roman Colchester. My hope is that by rebuilding the starting gates, a unique Roman monument can be revived, and I look forward to seeing the great benefits which will come from this endeavour.

This idea has attached much press attention as can be seen by the following links:

Architect wants to ‘celebrate’ Colchester’s Roman history (Gazette)

Colchester’s Roman circus gates could be rebuilt for £1.4m (Gazette)

Colchester Council will debate housing on Roman Circus site (Gazette)

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