Colchester No. 5 / Colecastro / Colecestra

There are seventeen entries for Colchester [variant spellings] in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/TL9925/colchester/] [accessed 8 June 2018]; a priest is mentioned as lord three times (two in 1066, one in 1086) and "0.5 church lands" is noted in one of the entries, but none of them mentions a church, though there must have some there at the time. The entry for this borough in the Victoria Country History (Essex, vol. 9, 1994) notes: "A church existed before the foundation of the Augustinian priory between 1093 and 1100. [...] Its functions were taken over by the priory church, which was apparently both conventual and parochial until the Dissolution. As an Augustinian foundation, the church was exempt from all ordinary jurisdiction until 1550 when it was made subject to the bishop of London. [...] After St. Botolph's church was destroyed in the siege of 1648 the benefice was regularly held in plurality with All Saints' until 1851. [...] In 1953 under the Colchester ecclesiastical reorganization St. Botolph's became part of the new parish of St. Botolph with Holy Trinity and St. Giles. [...] At the Dissolution the priory church of St. Botolph became the parish church. [...] From the siege of 1648, when St. Botolph's church was ruined, until the consecration of the new church in 1837, St. Botolph's parishioners attended All Saints' church"; there is no mention of a font in this church in the VCH entry. [NB: we have no information on its medieval font]. The present Church of St. Botolph is Victorian, and is located just south of the ruins of the old church.]