Tubswick (or Tubbeswick), a grade II listed brick-built Georgian farmhouse, is mentioned as a farm in 1296. A watching brief by A Wightman (Colchester Archaeological Trust) on behalf of Mersea Homes found no evidence of any building phases predating the Georgian Tubswick, which burnt down in 2009. Local rumours that Daniel Defoe wrote Moll Flanders here are contradicted by the fact that Defoe did not own or rent the property at that date.