The family market and festival on Saturday at St Botolph's Priory was an excellent event and showed what a great public space and heritage site the priory is.

We need to keep it that way by ensuring that the recent security measures, which have made a significant difference, are maintained.

I would suggest Colchester Council makes it all year round.

The importance of St Botolph's was recognised in a bull of Pope Pascal II dated August 1116, in which the Pope acknowledged it as the mother house of all Augustinian priories in England.

Yet the site has until recently not been a safe space to take students to visit due to inappropriate comments being made by people under the influence.

It was good to see ideas being asked for as to how to improve the site.

Some form of visitor centre or open air display telling of Colchester's rich monastic history would be a start, coupled with, of course, the civil war history of the site.

It was good to see Trevor Orton presenting the story of Captain Jesse Jones, who fought at the battle of Waterloo, and is buried in the priory churchyard.

Restoring the grave site and providing a visual display to tell Captain Jones' story would be a fitting tribute.

Colchester needs to continue to explore ways to enhance its heritage; Roman certainly but also beyond the Roman.

St John's Abbey, if historian David Baldwin was correct, may have been home to one of the vanished Princes in the Tower.

It was certainly the hiding place of Francis Lovell before his brave attempt to overthrow Henry VII.

Meanwhile the Red Lion Hotel, built by Richard III's right-hand man John Howard, has a rich history given the later role of this notorious family in the twists and turns of Tudor politics.

On the darker side, Colchester's bear baiting stake was situated in Bere Lane, probably on the site of what is now the Silk Road nightclub.

It is a shame this ancient street name was changed to Vineyard Street by the Victorians due to its association with prostitution as the former is a more fitting tribute to the animals which died there in the name of sport. Perhaps it could be changed back.

Mark Goacher

Green borough councillor for Castle Ward

Morant Road, Colchester