Tiptree Tea Room at The Minories in Colchester is a place where you can escape everyday life to relax and unwind. The tea room offers a wide range of home-made meals, made with fresh and tempting ingredients. Why not enjoy your Tiptree cream tea in the solitude and beautiful walled garden on a summer’s afternoon?
This tranquil tea room is open six days a week, every week of the year except over the Christmas period. With traditional table service and comfortable surroundings you will always be made to feel welcome, and you will enjoy your visit every time.
Tiptree at The Minories was previously called the Batte-Lay tea room as it was named after Victor Batte-Lay, a local art collector whose widow purchased The Minories in 1956, thus providing a permanent site for collections of art to be displayed in Colchester, encouraging local artists and students to engage with the community.
The property dates back to Tudor times and has an unusual Gothic Folly, built in 1830 as a summerhouse.
Tiptree at The Minories is in Colchester, Britain’s oldest recorded town, just a 2 minute walk from the 11thcentury Norman castle. The town exudes history, culture and creativity, and has an abundance of shops quirky and unique boutiques in narrow streets, as well as some of the more familiar retailers found in any large town.
Colchester’s writer Jane Taylor wrote ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’, her much-loved nursery rhyme in the attic of her home in Stockwell Street in 1806.
