If you walk down to the north end of East Stockwell Street and turn into Stockwell, it leads you to West Stockwell Street which was once known as Angel Lane after an inn of that name at its south end. To the south, it runs parallel to East Stockwell Street up to the High Street. The other way it does a dog leg past its junction with Nunn’s Road and then north to end at Northgate Street which runs above the Roman Wall and forms the edge of the Roman and medieval town.
The north ends of Nunn’s Road and West Stockwell Street form a peculiar wishbone shaped departure from the medieval grid pattern of the streets. There has been speculation that they may have been avoiding the remains of Roman Colchester’s amphitheatre. It almost certainly had one and there is some circumstantial evidence for it, but no trace of it has yet been found.
In Colchester’s splendid Roman Circus Centre, they have a model of the Roman town which shows it being roughly here, although interesting they also have an artist’s impression of the town which doesn’t show it at all. What the model doesn’t allow for or show, is the topography here. It is on the steep slope that forms the north side of the ridge that Colchester’s city centre sits on. It would have been too steep for an amphitheatre, unless they built it into the hillside, which is admittedly not an unheard-of thing for the Romans to do.
However, it wouldn’t fit the pattern of the Roman streets that have been found. More likely, the medieval builders of these streets deviated from the grid pattern due to the steep slope and run the streets down it at an angle to make them less steep. They avoided what would later happen in San Francisco when a rigid grid was put in with no regards to the topography which ended up in some ridiculously steep streets there.
Further up both the Stockwell Streets there is another way of getting between them via a footpath called Quakers Alley. It is named after the Quaker Meeting House which once stood on its north side where the youth centre now is. On its southern side is the former St. Martin’s Church which is now used by the Greek Orthodox Church. The alley was also once known as St. Martin’s Lane.
West Stockwell Street has several buildings with fascinating stories to tell. If you would like to see them and hear their tales, join me on one of my Walking Tours.
