We were away from Cambridge by nine o’clock and soon found ourselves in a country quite different in appearance from any we had yet passed through.  Our route led through Essex to Colchester on the coast.  We passed through several ancient towns, the first of them being Haverhill, which contributed a goodly number of the Pilgrim Fathers and gave its name to the town of Haverhill in Massachusetts.  It is an old, straggling place that seems to be little in harmony with the progress of the Twentieth Century.

Our route on leaving Haverhill led through narrow byways, which wind among the hills with turns so sharp that a close lookout had to be maintained.  We paused at Heddingham, where there is a great church and a partly ruined Norman castle.  The town is made up largely of cottages with thatched roofs, surrounded by the bright English flower gardens.  It was typical of several other places which we passed on our way.  I think that in no section of England did we find a greater number of picturesque churches than in Essex, and a collection of photographs of these, which was secured at Earl’s Colne, we prize very highly.

Colchester is an interesting town, deserving of much longer time than we were able to stay.  It derived its name from King Cole, the “merry old soul” of the familiar nursery rhyme.  It is one of the oldest towns in England and was of great importance in Roman times.  One of the largest collections of Roman relics in Britain is to be found in the museum of the castle.  There are hundreds of specimens of coin, pottery, jewelry, statuary, etc., all of which were found in excavations within the city.  The castle is one of the gloomiest and rudest in the Kingdom, and was largely built of Roman bricks.  It is quadrangular in shape, with high walls from twenty to thirty feet thick surrounding a small court.  About a hundred years ago it was sold to a contractor who planned to tear it down for the material, but after half completing his task he gave it up, leaving enough of the old fortress to give a good idea of what it was like.

The grim old ruin has many dark traditions of the times when “man’s inhumanity to man” was the rule rather than the exception.  Even the mild, nonresistant Quaker could not escape the bitterest persecution and in one of the dungeons of Colchester Castle young George Fox was immured and suffered death from neglect and starvation.  This especially attracted our attention, since the story had been pathetically told by the speaker at the Sunday afternoon meeting which we attended at Jordans and which I refer to in the following chapter.  While there is a certain feeling of melancholy that possesses one when he wanders through these mouldering ruins, yet he often can not help thinking that they deserved their fate.

Colchester suffered terribly in Parliamentary wars and only surrendered to Cromwell after sustaining a seventy-six day siege, many traces of which may still be seen.  There are two or three ancient churches dating from Saxon times which exhibit some remarkable specimens of Saxon architecture.  Parts of Colchester appeared quite modern and up-to-date, the streets being beautifully kept, and there were many handsome residences.  Altogether, there is a strange combination of the very old and the modern in Colchester.