Tubbeswick is mentioned as a farm as far back as 1296. It took its name from Richard Tubbe, bailiff of Colchester 1296-7, who had crops and stock worth £6, 16s. 8d. (Victoria County History). In February 1348, Joseph Elianore bestowed a messuage in Mile End called Tubbeswick, along with 18 acres of arable land and two of woodland, on the Church of St Mary-at-the-Walls to provide for a chantry in the Chapel of St Thomas the Martyr. This was a small part of a large endowment to support two chaplains to pray daily for his good estate whilst he was alive, and for his soul after his decease (Morant 1748, Book II, 47). Upon the chantry’s dissolution in 1548 Tubbeswick was passed to the corporation. The house (included as part of the Kingswood Heath, or Severalls, estate along with Brinkley Farm) was leased by the corporation to the author Daniel Defoe (c.1660-1731) on 6 August 1722 for £120 per annum for a period of 99 years (Morant 1748, Book II, 26). It was subsequently rebuilt for his daughter Molly Defoe in the early 1750s, probably 1752 based upon an inscribed brick found in the south elevation.<1>

Although not annotated Tubbeswick appears on the Chapman and André County of Essex map of 1777 as one of the very few properties in the north of Mile End. It is depicted as being on the southern edge of Mile End Heath, close to the westernmost of the two windmills that gave the current Mill Road its name.

At the time of the survey, significant damage had been caused by the 2009 and subsequent fires and consequently much of this record has been inferred from photographs and the English Heritage list description. Due to the unstable and unsafe nature of the structure, all observations and measurements were taken from outside a safety fence.

The brick-built Georgian farmhouse erected by the Defoe family evolved into the structure that survived into the 21st century; the rebuilding of Tubbeswick replaced all trace of any earlier medieval structure. The house comprised several distinct components: a two-storey Main House to the south, rectangular in plan (14m long x 5.5m wide) with a peg-tiled roof, and a north range consisting of three structures. To the west side of this was a two-storey structure with the upper floor being a 20th-century addition or rebuild whilst the ground floor was probably contemporary to the 1750s' rebuilding of the Main House. To the east of this was a single-storey structure with a steeply pitched slate roof. Attached to the east of this was a smaller single-storey lean-to with a slate roof. An out-house (door facing north) was located approximately 2m to the east of this.
A myth connected to the house is that Defoe wrote Moll Flanders whilst living there, but the fact that the publication date for that novel is January 1722 and the lease was not signed until August of that year disproves this theory.