The statue of Jane and Ann Taylor, authors of ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’, by sculptor Mandy Pratt, on Colchester High Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
Patrick Comerford
Old King Cole was a merry old soul,
And a merry old soul was he;
He called for his pipe, and he called for his bowl,
And he called for his fiddlers three.
Every fiddler he had a fiddle,
And a very fine fiddle had he;
Oh, there’s none so rare, as can compare,
With King Cole and his fiddlers three.
Two of us spent much of yesterday in Colchester in north-east Essex, the second-largest town or city in Essex, with a population of over 130,000. Colchester is 80 km (50 miles) north-east of London on the Great Eastern Main Line railway, and stands on the River Colne.
Charlotte and I were on our way to the small village of Frating yesterday, but we stopped for a few hours in Colchester on the way there and back, to see the castle, the remains of the Roman Wall and some of the older churches, buildings and sites.
Colchester stands on the site of Camulodunum, the first major city in Roman Britain and its first capital, and so it claims to be Britain’s first city. But it also has associations with Shakespeare’s play Cymbeline, and it claims to be the home of three of the best-known English nursery rhymes: ‘Old King Cole’, ‘Humpty Dumpty’ and ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star’. Some local traditions also try to link Colchester with the Camelot of King Arthur.
There are several theories about the origin of the name Colchester. Some contend that it comes from the Latin words colonia, a Roman settlement with rights equivalent to those of Roman citizens, and castra, meaning fortifications and referring to the city walls, the oldest in Britain. Others link the name with the River Colne, which flows through Colchester.
Colchester claims to be the oldest recorded town in Britain because it was mentioned by Pliny the Elder, who died in 79 CE. The Celtic name of the town, Camulodunon, appears on coins minted in the period 20-10 BCE. Before the Roman conquest of Britain it was already a centre of power for Cunobelin – known to Shakespeare as Cymbeline – king of the Catuvellauni (ca 5 BCE-40 CE), who minted coins there.
Shakespeare set his play Cymbeline, also known as The Tragedie of Cymbeline or Cymbeline, King of Britain, in Ancient Britain and based it on legends about the early historical Celtic British King Cunobeline.
Although it is listed as a tragedy in the First Folio, modern critics often classify Cymbeline as a romance or even a comedy. Like Othello and The Winter’s Tale, it deals with the themes of innocence and jealousy. While the precise date when it was written is unknown, the play was produced as early as 1611.
Is the ancient name of Camulodunum a clue to a potential site of legendary Camelot? … a pub sign on Colchester High Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
Colchester has also been suggested as one of the potential sites of Camelot, on account of having been the capital of Roman Britain and its ancient name of Camulodunum. But this is not considered likely by academics, as in Arthurian times Colchester was under Saxon control.
Colchester claims to be the home of three of the best known English nursery rhymes: ‘Old King Cole’, ‘Humpty Dumpty’ and ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star’, although the legitimacy of all three claims is disputed.
Local legend places Colchester as the seat of King Cole of the rhyme ‘Old King Cole’, a legendary ancient king of Britain. In folklore, the name Colchester was said to mean Cole’s Castle, although this theory does not have academic support. In the legend, Helena, the daughter of Cole, married the Roman senator Constantius Chlorus, who had been sent by Rome as an ambassador and was named as Cole’s successor.
Helena’s son became the Emperor Constantine I. Helena became known as Saint Helena of Constantinople and is said to have found the true cross. She is now the patron saint of Colchester. This is recognised in the emblem of Colchester: a cross and three crowns.
The medallion of the Mayor of Colchester includes a Byzantine-style icon of Saint Helena. Her statue is atop the town hall, although local legend says that it was originally a statue of the Virgin Mary that was later fitted with a cross.
The legend that King Cole of Colchester was the father of the Empress Saint Helena, and the grandfather of Constantine the Great, first appeared in Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum and Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae. But the claim may predate both Henry and Geoffrey.
The statue of Saint Helena at the top of Colchester Town Hall … was she the daughter of Old King Cole? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
Colchester is a widely linked with the nursery rhyme ‘Humpty Dumpty’. During the siege of Colchester in the English Civil War in 1648, a Royalist sniper known as ‘One-Eyed Thompson’ sat in the belfry of the Church of Saint Mary-at-the-Walls (Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall) and was given the nickname Humpty Dumpty, most likely because of his size, Humpty Dumpty being a common insult for the overweight.
Thompson was shot down (Humpty Dumpty had a great fall) and, shortly after, the town was lost to the Parliamentarians (all the king’s horses and all the king’s men / couldn’t put Humpty together again). Another version says Humpty Dumpty was a cannon at the top of the church. The Church of Saint Mary-at-the-Walls still retains its Norman tower up to the top few feet, which are a Georgian repair.
In literary terms, Colchester also has links with Daniel Defoe, who set the first part of his 1722 novel Moll Flanders in Colchester, and George Orwell. In A tour through England and Wales, Daniel Defoe records that C5,259 people in Colchester died in the plague in 1665, ‘more in proportion than any of its neighbours, or than the city of London’. George Orwell refers to Colchester in his book Nineteen Eighty-Four, when Colchester is the scene of a nuclear detonation. He is being honoured with a new £2 coin this month to mark the 75th anniversary of his death on 21 January 1950.
It may not merit literary attention, but the third nursery rhyme associated with Colchester is ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’. It was written by the sisters Jane Taylor (1783-1824) and Ann Taylor (1782-1866), who both wrote children’s poems while they lived in West Stockwell Street, in Colchester’s Dutch Quarter, from 1796 to 1810. It was first published in 1806 with the title ‘The Star’.
The statue of the sisters Jane and Ann by the sculptor Mandy Pratt was unveiled on 4 May 2024 on Colchester High Street, opposite the Town Hall and West Stockwell Street. The opening words of ‘The Star’ are at the feet of the sculpture:
Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.
Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!
The sisters Jane and Ann Taylor lived in West Stockwell Street in Colchester’s Dutch Quarter from 1796 to 1810 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
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