A hall in The Lane
Old City Hall is a small Christian meeting hall in The Lane, West Mersea. Its name comes from the Old City neighbourhood, not from any civic or municipal function. The building stands where the old Ship Inn and adjoining cottages once stood.
Anna and Ruth Plummer
The sisters Anna and Ruth Plummer lived in Seaview Avenue and ran a weekly Christian women's meeting at Riverside House, near West Mersea Yacht Club. As numbers grew, they arranged for a purpose-built meeting hall in The Lane.
The hall was erected around 1930. West Mersea Town Council's summary gives the construction period as the 1920s, while the local church-history account gives 1930; the precise opening date therefore remains worth checking against a dated building record. In 1940 the sisters handed the hall over to a group of local Christians.
Before the hall: the Ship Inn
The Ship Inn had stood on the site for generations. George Aldous appears as its licensed victualler in the 1881 census and was described as a retired beerhouse keeper living in The Lane by 1911. By the 1920s the former pub buildings were derelict. A worker remembered as Taffy the Welshman is associated with the site during construction of West Mersea's sewerage system.
The old cottages were demolished before the hall was built, leaving a small piece of the waterfront's pub history beneath a much quieter building.
Records
Local chapel histories ↗ · Town Council: places of worship ↗
Related history: Old City, West Mersea · Mersea's former pubs.