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King Coel's Castle
A king invented from a place name, guarding a real Roman gate.
See it clearly
- What's there
- Remains of a huge Roman west gate
- Legend from
- Medieval chronicles
- Tone
- Curious
Ahead is the great Roman gate medieval Colchester called King Coel's Castle, home of its legendary founding king.
Medieval Colchester gave itself a royal founder. Henry of Huntingdon, writing around 1133, said that Helen, the mother of Constantine, was the daughter of a British king called Coel. Geoffrey of Monmouth turned Coel into a duke of Colchester who seized the crown of Britain. By the 14th century the town believed that Coel founded it in 219 AD and that the Roman Constantius besieged it for three years before peace was made by marrying Coel's daughter. The huge Roman west gate was known as King Coel's Castle, and an armed fight outside it in 1391 is on record. Historians see Coel as a back-formation from the town's name.