This week for Fossil Friday, our Collections and Learning Assistant Chris is talking us through ammonites, the spiral-shelled swimmers of the ancient seas.

The Knightzzz Sleepover is back at Colchester Castle on 29–30 May! Meet Juliasaurus, explore hidden areas, dino activities, hot chocolate and breakfast. From £40/person, ages 5+. Book at colchester.cimuseums.org.uk/events/knightzzz/ 🌙🦕

Fancy learning about dinosaurs… in a bar? 🦖 Our collections team are speaking at Jurassic Pints for @pintofscience.uk in Colchester. Hear about a possible brand new dinosaur species now on display locally, explore 100 million years of Essex fossils, and even handle real specimens.

We didn't think we'd be famous on Spanish Bluesky 😅😅 Hola! No pensamos que seríamos famosos en Bluesky Español.

Madre mía, el duralex.

The #ThrowbackThursday reveal: Winsley's Almshouses on Old Heath Road, photographed from almost exactly the same spot as that 1898 image. The charity was founded by Arthur Winsley, a wealthy wool and cloth dealer, who left much of his property and £500 in his will.

It’s #ThrowbackThursday and we have a challenge for you! 👀 This photograph was taken in 1898, and if you look closely you can spot residents going about their day. Whoever took this photograph clearly wanted to show the place as a community, not just a building. Do you know where this is?

This glass bowl has had quite the journey. Made by Italian glassblowers sometime in the late 1st century BC, it made its way to Britain before the Romans even arrived and ended up buried at Stanway in what archaeologists call the Warrior's Burial, carefully placed inside a wood box around AD 40–50.

If you’re in Epping today, there’s still time to catch a talk by Dr Carolina Rangel de Lima, our Collections and Learning Curator. A great chance to hear from one of our curators in person. Tonight, 7–8pm. Doors open at 6.45pm. £7 per person. Book now: www.ticketsource.co.uk/efdmuseum

Mini Museum Explorers returns on 19 May at the Natural History Museum. This month: seeds and plants! Two sessions for children aged 2½–5. £3 per child. Book at colchester.cimuseums.org.uk/events/mmemay/ 🌱

This is a Bellarmine jug, a 475 mm-tall chunk of salt-glazed stoneware that did time in the old Angel Inn on Colchester High Street, somewhere between the 1700s and early 1800s. That bearded face on the neck is the point. Comic, a bit menacing, and still very much judging your pint choices.

"It'll be all right as long as you've got your potato"

Can you break the Serpent's Curse? An after-hours escape experience is coming to Colchester Castle on 23 May. Crack clues, solve puzzles and uncover the mystery inside Europe's largest Norman keep. You've got 45 minutes. Good luck. Book at colchester.cimuseums.org.uk/events/serpents-curse/ 🐍

Nine objects from our Discover: Museum Wonders exhibition. Tag someone with their vibe. Bonus points if you can justify calling your mate a Magic Potato. 🥔

May is looking busy across Colchester Museums, with something for pretty much every age and interest. Here's the full rundown of what's on this month. 🧵

A glimpse into Colchester’s democratic past: a cast iron electoral stamping machine used in Borough elections from the 1920s to 1996. This machine was used to emboss official ballot papers before they were issued. Pulling the curved lever pressed a die into the paper, adding a mark of authenticity.

Live Captioned Talk + Tour at Colchester Castle, 9 May (3-4.15pm). Captions by Stagetext. £4.95 adult / £2.85 child. Carers free. Can't do the stairs? A captioned virtual tour is available at reception for £1.50. colchester.cimuseums.org.uk/events/captiontour-may/

We're on Good Journey now, which means planning a car-free museum visit just got much easier. All three Colchester Museums sites have full travel directions by train, bus, bike and foot. No parking faff, just straightforward routes that work: goodjourney.org.uk

Beneath Colchester Castle sit the foundations of the Roman Temple of Claudius. Our new Live Captioned Talk + Tour visits them on 9 May (3-4.15pm), live captions by Stagetext. Ages 4+. Tickets from £2.85. colchester.cimuseums.org.uk/events/captiontour-may/

This is the nest, or burrow, of a trapdoor spider, mounted in silver and displayed under a glass dome. It's part of the Discover: Museum Wonders exhibition at Hollytrees Museum, and it's one of those objects that raises more questions than it answers.

Whilst preparing for Discover: Museum Wonders, we found this hiding in our collections: three lobsters dressed as Victorian gentlemen, arranged in an extraordinarily detailed miniature drawing room scene in a glazed case.

We understand. Museum fatigue is real 😅 With a Museums Pass, you can take all the time you need. Pop in for 20 minutes, come back for the “actually reading the labels” mood another day. Grab yours and make it a slow-burn museum era 🏛️✨ 🔗 colchester.cimuseums.org.uk/memberships

New this May: a Live Captioned Talk + Tour of Colchester Castle, launching during Deaf Awareness Week (9 May, 3-4.15pm). 2,000 years of history, Roman Vaults, live captions by Stagetext. Tickets from £2.85. colchester.cimuseums.org.uk/events/captiontour-may/

Reveal time for #ThrowbackThursday: it’s Butt Road, Colchester, with the Bull Hotel in the background. Our photo was taken in 1937, and the bones of the street are still easy to spot in today’s view, even with the road feeling very 2026. What’s the first difference you noticed?

It’s #ThrowbackThursday, and this one’s pure Colchester nostalgia. Our photo was taken in 1937, with the Bull Hotel in view. It’s the sort of street scene that makes you want to step into it for five minutes, just to hear the traffic and see what’s in the shop windows. Do you recognise the spot?

It's Earth Day, and here's a thought: what could you do for wildlife this week in under ten minutes? 🌍 Grabbed a free Give it a Grow kit from the Natural History Museum? Your sunflowers and wildflowers are already creating food and shelter for pollinators.

The non-dinosaur elements of Discover deserve attention. Apotropaic objects, locally excavated marine fossils, and a curatorial approach that uses the unfamiliar (a Wyoming Theropod) to illuminate the familiar (Colchester’s own geological record).

Colchester's Natural History Museum is on Euan's Guide. Free entry, and your reviews help other disabled visitors plan their trip: euansguide.com/venues/colchestersnaturalhistorymuseum-colchester

Turtles have been around for roughly 150 million years, right alongside the dinosaurs. Juliasaurus didn't survive the mass extinction. Turtles did. See this European pond turtle alongside Juliasaurus in Discover: Museum Wonders at Hollytrees Museum: colchester.cimuseums.org.uk/discover

Found in Essex in 2006 by a metal detectorist, the Mountnessing Pendant is a rare piece of Elizabethan jewellery. It’s gold, set with a central ruby and eight diamonds, with an engraved back that was once enamelled. Traces of dark blue enamel still sit in the lines on the reverse.

Chris from Collections and Learning is talking about gryphaea, those ‘devil’s toenails’ from an Essex seabed that used to sit where Colchester is now. Put beside a Morrison Formation theropod, they do something effective: they make visitors rethink what ‘here’ meant 150 million years ago.

And here's the reveal! This is St John's Church on Ipswich Road, built in 1864 by architect Arthur Blomfield in the High Victorian Early Gothic style.

It's #ThrowbackThursday, and today we've got a challenge for you. 👀 This 1898 photograph shows a Colchester landmark that's still very much standing. That distinctive bell turret is a bit of a giveaway if you know your local architecture, but we're not going to make it too easy for you.

If you picked up a free Give it a Grow kit from the Natural History Museum, consider this your gentle nudge to get planting. Even a windowsill pot helps pollinators. 🌻

The apotropaic objects in the Discover exhibition deserve more attention. Concealed objects and witch bottles found in situ during building works across Colchester. Material evidence of folk practices that bridged centuries. 🔗colchester.cimuseums.org.uk/discover

Hollytrees is a bonus Beat the Street spot tomorrow (15 Apr). Tap your card, then come in and see a dinosaur skull. Genuinely excellent Tuesday. beatthestreet.me/colchester

Colchester Castle is a bonus Beat the Street spot tomorrow, 14 April. Tap your card and maybe get a ticket to see inside the Castle while you're there. beatthestreet.me/colchester

FINAL TICKETS: Murder Mystery THIS FRIDAY Carry on up the Tiber, 18 April, Colchester Castle. Ancient Rome whodunnit, fizz included, going fast. £35 • 18+ • 7:30pm colchester.cimuseums.org.uk/events/murdermystery/

Purple has always had a reputation. Royalty wore it. Long before any of that, the Earth was quietly making it inside volcanic rock, one crystal at a time. This amethystine quartz specimen is now on display in Discover: Museum Wonders at Hollytrees, alongside a 6.2-metre dinosaur.

These bone fragments once decorated a Roman funeral couch, or lectus funebris, found in the Child’s Grave burial in Colchester. The couch was a high-status piece of furniture. It may have carried the body in procession before being burnt on the pyre.

One week in. Still haven’t got bored of watching people walk in and see Juliasaurus for the first time. Don’t think we ever will.

The answer for today’s #ThrowbackThursday? Winnock's Almshouses, still doing exactly what it was built to do in 1890: providing homes for people over 65 who want to live independently. It had a significant update around 2019, which is more than most 130-year-old buildings can say.

Our #ThrowbackThursday today was photographed sometime in the late Victorian or early Edwardian era, not long after the building was founded. The plaque on the facade was there from the start and is still there today. Some things are stubborn in the best possible way. Do you recognise this building?

Spring's here and there's something rather lovely waiting for you at the Natural History Museum. We've teamed up with Hubbub to bring you free Give it a Grow kits, packed with sunflower and wildflower seeds to get you started. Pick yours up while stocks last. 🌻

In case you missed it - we were on ITV News this weekend! buff.ly/qxSr3kY

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The broader Discover exhibition is worth attention beyond Juliasaurus. Concealed objects, apotropaic practices, and regional Jurassic marine fossils providing landscape context. Colchester’s collections doing real work here: colchester.cimuseums.org.uk/discover

Last chance to book. Saturday 18 April, immersive murder mystery at Colchester Castle. Roam a Norman keep transformed into a Roman crime scene, question costumed actors, solve whodunnit. Prosecco included. Participatory theatre. 7:30pm, £35, 18+. colchester.cimuseums.org.uk/events/murde...

Built on the foundations of a Roman temple, the keep of Colchester Castle in Essex is the largest of its kind anywhere in Europe. It was largely abandoned by the seventeenth century, but later restored and is now home to a marvelous museum @colmuseums.bsky.social. #MedievalMonday

Warning, flashing video. However, it's a dinosaur skeleton.