Wellhouse on Colchester Road
Wellhouse is a late-eighteenth-century house on Colchester Road, West Mersea. The building is two storeys high, with plastered walls, a parapet and a peg-tiled roof. It became a Grade II listed building on 27 January 1982.
Its symmetrical front has a central six-panelled door, small-paned sash windows and two dormers between end chimney stacks. The official listing also records a lean-to on one side and a one-storey-and-attic extension on the other, revealing changes made to the original late-eighteenth-century house.
Historic England’s description records two flat-roofed dormers with small-paned casements and a front of sash windows set in exposed frames. The central first-floor sash is smaller than the two either side, while the later side additions are visibly lower than the main house.
The Wellhouse estate in John Spurden’s will
John Spurden of Smith Hall made his will on 9 March 1805; it was proved on 26 June 1809 after two codicils, dated 31 January 1807 and 23 July 1808. His Wellhouse property included a dwelling and farm, barns, stables, cottages, yards and land. Some was freehold and some copyhold of the manors of West Mersea Hall and Bower Hall.
Spurden had bought an undivided half-share from his relative Thomas Cooke; his son John Cooke Spurden held the other half through an earlier inheritance. Tenants named in the will included John Hempton, William Dixon, Samuel Death and a Mr Chapman. The testator wished his wife Diana to live at Wellhouse for life, keeping the property repaired and insured against fire.
The will also placed legacies of £500 each for Sophia and Harriot Spurden against the estate, with conditions for their payment. These documents describe a wider farm holding called Wellhouse; the Grade II listing protects the surviving eighteenth-century house, not necessarily every building mentioned in the 1805 will.
The surviving house
The surviving building stands on Colchester Road between the Strood and the village centre and is private property. Historic England’s listed-building description records the eighteenth-century fabric and later extensions.