Praecedo is a new development in New Town, Colchester, transforming the former garrison site on Mersea Road.  As another layer is added to the site's history, I have been getting to know the area and it's past, right back to Roman times, whilst exploring the community networks associated with it today.

I have been looking at ways of sharing with local people in the wider community the ideas behind the work, to encourage them to find out more about their neighbourhood.

As ex-service personnel and new groups of people move to Praecedo and call the area home, they bring their own tastes and cultures.  Through the distribution of specially designed seed packs with information about the wider project we invite local residents to grow their own ‘Introduced Species’, in celebration of that diversity and all those who have come before.

Concepts have been approved for the permanent work which will take the form of a series of text based inscriptions in the floor surface of the seating areas along the central Wolfe Avenue cycleway. 

The text ' Inhabit, Cultivate, Frequent, Practice, Tend Guard Respect', a Roman Motto, has ben cast into the panels layered alongside different food species thought to have been introduced by the Romans to the Colchester diet. Each species will be represented in a number of different languages to emphasise the diversity of influence that the military connections and different cultures have had from Roman times to present day. A celebration of the population of the many different communities living within the New Town area today.