Publications & Films
Colchester Civic Society is occasionally involved in the publishing of books, research and films. 2018 was a particularly productive year with the publication of the book The Historic High Street, plus a website and two films about the work of Henry and Joyce Collins, with particular focus on their concrete murals in the Southway subways. This was followed by a major survey of Colchester’s war memorials commemorating the Great War of 1914-18. This is in the form of a PDF.
More recently three surveys by Robert Mercer have been added (also in the form of PDF’s). The first being a survey of Colchester’s Ironwork, which includes The cast iron lampposts. This was followed by a survey of Colchester’s Historic Post Boxes and A Survey of Historic Street Names.
Robert Mercer has now produced a fourth, this is a survey of Colchester’s Sculptures.
The book contains beautifully detailed drawings of the timbered buildings which once lined Colchester High Street, some of which remain to this day, though mostly hidden behind more recent facades.
This is available from Red Lion Books in Colchester High Street.
This website was created to provide information about the artists and their work in their home town of Colchester.
In 2017 Colchester Civic Society and Colchester in Bloom, supported by a grant from Heritage Lottery Fund, undertook the restoration of the artist’s concrete murals across the town’s Southway subways. The project was to reinvigorate and celebrate the significance of the concrete and mosaic murals, made in 1972 – 73 by husband and wife team Henry Collins and Joyce Pallot.
The website gives further information about the artist and the restoration projects. It also includes links to two films produced by Signals Media as part of this project.
Film – A concrete Legacy – the story of the restoration project plus
Behind The Scenes – A short film about the making of A Concrete Legacy
In October 2017 Dr Paul Rusiecki was requested by the Colchester Civic Society to produce a survey of all the borough’s war memorials connected with the Great War, a survey that was to include photographs of them all to determine whether any required repair or refurbishment. The aim was to establish whether any of them required repairs and/or refurbishment during 2018, the centenary of the Armistice, and the year in which funding for such matters might reasonably be expected to end. We are pleased to report that none were found to be in need of repair.
In addition, included in this survey is a transcription of all the unveiling and dedication ceremonies which were held, from the very first one, at the Colchester and East Essex Cricket Club in 1915, until the most recent, at North Primary School in 2017. In this way the Civic Society now possesses a comprehensive list of these ceremonies, together with the names of the men who were listed as having fallen in the war.
The full document which runs to approximately 150 pages and 45,000 words, plus numerous photographs is available below as a PDF which you may download to read offline.