I used to eat there maybe 3 or 4 times a year. It did a very good Darjeeling, and its eggs benedict were rather special, too. Its setting, in a 15th-century building (for many years the home of Elizabeth I's physician, William Gilberd), was pleasant and secluded. I used to take visitors to Colchester there if they wanted a chat over a light lunch.
I knew that Tymperleys was closing down on Monday, when it featured in the local BBC news. That's why I was in town on Tuesday — we were having one last lunch there. I held off blogging it until today, though, because I expected it to feature in the Essex County Standard, which indeed it did. What I didn't expect was that the ECS wouldn't describe it as "the popular restaurant/tearoom/café/eaterie".
Whenever a restaurant/tearoom/café/eaterie closes in Colchester, the ECS describes it as "popular". This is invariably false, because if it were popular then it wouldn't be closing. Tymperleys was not, however, described as being popular. This may have been because it actually was popular.
The reasons for closing it down, described on page 5 inside the newspaper, include: the recent rise in National Insurance; the 20% rate of VAT paid by the hospitality industry; people sharing slices of cake between two instead of buying one each; inflation; lack of footfall. With regard to footfall, perhaps more people would have dropped in if Colchester town centre wasn't dominated by: other café's, barbershops, nail bars, tattoo parlours, charity shops, vape outlets and newsagents that give the impression you could buy illegal goods from them if you knew the codeword.
It took about an hour to be served when we were in Tymperleys on Tuesday, because one of the cooks was off sick.
I'm sure that anyone equating "off sick" with "having a job interview" is being entirely unfair.