Colchester: Britain’s oldest recorded town, with a garrison in it.

Colchester carries Roman walls, a Norman castle, a long-established garrison and a university — a genuinely old town with a young, busy centre. Beyond it, north Essex turns to Constable country: the Stour valley villages, Dedham and Nayland, converted farmhouses and country properties on private lanes, where the money is quiet, rural and generally keen to remain so.

Colchester’s residential questions now include the penthouse as well as the village house. A penthouse’s single lift core, shared car park and open terrace set different problems from a house at the end of a long drive, and a building’s own security covers the building, not the flat. Security in apartment and gated buildings sets out the difference; residential security in Colchester looks at a specific home.

So our Colchester work is largely residential: protective surveys for the Stour-valley and village houses, where seclusion and a long approach are the design and the vulnerability, alongside secure driving across north Essex and discreet close protection for private occasions. We plan for a rural county — response time is a function of who is genuinely nearby.