Heritage Open Day: Hollytrees is the best 18th-century house in Colchester and has been a museum since 1929. It was built in 1718/19 for Elizabeth Cornelisen, a wealthy widow, on the site of an earlier house. It was later the home of Colchester's MP Charles Gray (1696-1782) who commissioned the local architect James Deane to extend the building in 1748. Gray also owned the nearby Colchester Castle which will be open for Heritage Open Days on the same day.
It now houses Colchester’s Visitor Information Centre and a museum of family life and childhood in the city over the past 300 years.