Events & Outings

Below are reports with short videos on some of our outings. We hope you enjoy them.

Some of our members took the opportunity to climb up inside the  water tower in January 2023. The Colchester and North East Essex Building Preservation Trust, who are now the lease holders, hosted two parties of members  on this visit and others, who did not feel up to the long climb, were given a talk afterwards in the Mercury Theatre Cafe on the history of the water tower and the plans for the future.

For more information about the Trust and their plans for the  water tower follow this link

North Essex Heritage – Website of North Essex Heritage (colchesterbpt.co.uk)

If you would like to watch a video made by one of our members on one of these visits, then see below.

Our social programme in 2019 included evening visits to Fingringhoe Wick Nature Reserve to watch a badger clan. Just four people are admitted each time along with a volunteer warden. You get to sit in an armchair in a hide and watch the badgers feeding through the large windows. A very special evening, which hopefully will be on offer again in 2021.
The reserve has a badger cam set up where you can watch live. Here is the link https://www.essexwt.org.uk/badger-webcam
If you would like to watch a video made by one of our members on one of these visits, then see below.

Shown here are photos and a short video from an extraordinary outing for Civic Society members. Titled THE BIG STINK, this trip began with a guided coach tour around central London where we learned about the development of London’s sewerage system in the 19th century and how this was created to take away the sewerage from London’s Streets and from being discharged directly into the Thames, which by this time had become a stinking open sewer.
The solution, we learned, was to build a sewer to take it all down river to a covered reservoir and a pumping station on the south bank of the Thames at Thamesmead. Our journey there began on a river bus from Westminster Pier to Greenwich where we met the coach again for the final stage of the journey through Woolwich to the Crossness Pumping Station at Thamesmead.
The central feature here turned out to be a giant steam powered beam engine, which was used to pump the raw sewerage from a covered reservoir into the river as the tide was running out! This was a truly spectacular sight, as you can see for yourself.
For more information you can follow this link to the Crossness Engines website http://www.crossness.org.uk/
The Civic Society offers a range of outings for its members, which in 2019 ranged from Badger Watching at Fingringhoe Wick to THE BIG STINK outing. If you would like to join us on future outings then you can become a member here https://www.colchestercivicsociety.co.uk/join-us/

Alternatively email us at info@colchestercivicsociety.co.uk
And your membership fee will help to support the work of the society.