My photos of Colchester's Heritage Day are centered round the Hythe (Port) of Colchester.
The Ipswich Transport Museum provided a 1960-80 Bus to transport visitors from the Town Hall to the Hythe. Among the various buildings open for view was St Leonard's Church. ( History) The settlement at the Hythe or New Hythe, Colchester's port, was physically distinct from the town, being separated from it by arable fields, although it was legally and constitutionally part of the town. It presumably began about the 11th century when the port moved north from the old hythe or Old Heath. (fn. 90) The move at Colchester, as at other ports, was probably associated with the construction of quays and possibly with the first improvements to the river. A cut across the marshes in Wivenhoe parish opposite Old Heath was made after the parish boundary had been fixed but probably before the surviving borough records begin in the early 14th century. St. Leonard's church at the Hythe was founded before the mid 12th century, but its compact parish contrasts with the dispersed parishes of the intramural churches and suggests that it was relatively late. (fn. 91) In the late 12th century and the early 13th the settlement was called Heia as well as Hythe, the former name presumably referring to inclosures, perhaps of meadow, made when the port was laid out. A tenement there was given to St. John's in 1160, and a rent from a house there in the later 12th century. (fn. 92) St. Leonard's church stands half way up Hythe Hill, well back from the water front and probably on the edge of the 12th-century settlement; there was still arable land near it in the mid 13th century. (fn. 93)

From: 'Medieval Colchester: Growth of the town', A History of the County of Essex: Volume 9: The Borough of Colchester (1994), pp. 38-47. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=21972. Date accessed: 09 September 2007.