Rewsalls and the older manors
Rewsalls Farm and Rewsalls Lane preserve the name of a historic East Mersea estate. Older documents also use the spellings Reveshall, Reues-halle and Rusalls. The name was applied to more than one holding.
In 1368 William, son and heir of Hugh Groos, held half of the manor of Reues-halle. Part of that holding later passed to St Osyth Abbey; the Northlands or Reveshall estate came into the hands of Sir Thomas Audley following the Dissolution of the Monasteries. These older holdings should not all be treated as a single farm.
A separate southern manor of Rusalls belonged to Sir William Capell, who died in 1515. In 1558 Philip and Mary granted that manor, formerly part of the Capell possessions, to Sir Thomas White. Sir John Spencer, who died in 1609, held a Rewsalls estate that included arable land, meadow, pasture, wood and heath.
Rewsalls Lane today
Rewsalls Lane runs south from East Road through an agricultural part of East Mersea towards the southern coast. The historic Rewsalls name refers to landholdings as well as the lane; it does not imply that old manorial buildings are open for public visiting.
The shoreline below Rewsalls
The shore below Rewsalls is exposed to erosion and ongoing coastal change. The farm frontage lies apart from the beach and coastal paths at Cudmore Grove; access conditions vary along the southern and eastern shore.
The surviving eighteenth-century barn
A Grade II listed barn stands east of Rewsalls Farmhouse. Built in the eighteenth century, it has a five-bay oak-and-elm timber frame and black weatherboarding. The frame retains hanging knees, lapped collars, side purlins and primary wind braces beneath its corrugated-iron roof. The former projecting entrance, or midstrey, has been removed.
Historic England's listing for Rewsalls barn. · Manorial history recorded in 1768