The site on which Lexden now stands was crossed by the fortifications of
Iron Age Colchester, the remains of the earthen ramparts can be seen at Bluebottle Grove,
Lexden Park and alongside Straight Road. A number of burial mounds or
tumuli remain, notably
Lexden Tumulus in Fitzwalter Road which is reputed to be the burial place of
Cunobelinus or
Cymbeline, the king of the
Catuvellauni. The
Lexden Medallion was found when the tumulus was excavated in 1924 and is now in the
Colchester Castle Museum. Another tumulus is
The Mount in Marlowe Way, in which some fragments of Roman pottery and tiles have been found. The Domesday Book of 1086 records Lexden ("Lassendene") as being one of the
Hundreds of Essex. The hundred was named after the village, which was therefore quite likely the meeting place for the hundred court. However, by the 14th century the parish of Lexden had been removed from the hundred to which it gave its name, and had instead been included within the separate jurisdiction of the borough of Colchester. From the 14th century the borough comprised sixteen parishes, four of which (Lexden,
Berechurch, Greenstead, and
Myland) were classed as "outlying parishes", covering areas that were more peripheral or suburban to the main part of the town as it then was. The parish church was founded early in the 12th century and a number of houses of medieval origins survive in Lexden Road (the A1124). Parts of the Sun Inn date from 1542 but it has recently become a private house. In 1648, Lexden was the headquarters of Lord-General
Thomas Fairfax during the
Siege of Colchester, and his army camped on Lexden Heath. A Parliamentarian fort was built on Great Broom Heath (now called
Hilly Fields) which overlooks the town. During the 18th century a number of large houses were built including Lexden Park on the corner of Church Road, and the Manor House was rebuilt. The main road became a
turnpike in 1707 and a cottage used as a
toll house survives. Lexden Heath was a large area of
common land used for grazing, horse races and military camps; it was
inclosed by Act of Parliament in 1821. This enlarged the estate of the lord of the manor, the Reverend John Rawstorn Papillon, who was an acquaintance of
Jane Austen and whose niece married Jane's brother Henry. Straight Road was created at this time to make a way across the new inclosures to the hamlet of
Shrub End, which became a separate
ecclesiastical parish in 1845. The small and decrepit medieval church of St Leonard was demolished in 1820 and a new church was built slightly to the south, designed in the
Early English style by M. G. Thompson. A larger chancel was added in 1892. A
Methodist chapel was built in Straight Road in 1859 and a mission hall (now Lexden Evangelical Church) in 1885. A National Day and Sunday School was built in Spring Lane in 1817 and enlarged several times until replaced by Lexden Council School (now Lexden Primary) in 1925. Lexden Park House became the Endsleigh private school in 1955 and then the Endsleigh Annex of the Colchester Institute until 1990. The house itself was converted to apartments and the gardens became a local nature reserve. The Avenue of Remembrance was built in 1933 to relieve traffic on the London Road and as a memorial to the fallen of Colchester in
World War I.
Charles Henry Harrod, a businessman involved in retail trade who founded the highly successful Harrods store in London, was born in Lexden. All the parishes within the borough, including Lexden, were united into a single parish of Colchester matching the borough in 1897. At the 1891 census (the last before the abolition of the civil parish), Lexden had a population of 3,562. ==Education==