A Parliamentary Report of 1777 records a parish workhouse in Wivenhoe for up to 30 inmates.

The VCH records:
In 1726 Nicholas Corsellis granted for the use of the poor a cottage lying between Wivenhoe heath and Wivenhoe Cross, which was con- verted to a parish workhouse. In 1750 parish officers intended to build a new parish work- house, but they apparently extended the existing small workhouse instead. The surviving building is arranged as a terrace of late 18th-century houses.

There were 25 people in the workhouse in 1755, and 22 in 1756. In 1759 there were only c. 16 but also 10 households received outdoor relief. A spinning wheel was provided in 1757 and another in 1759, and in 1765 the workhouse master was a bayweaver from Colchester. The workhouse master and mistress were required to understand spinning. The wedding expenses of inmates were paid on four occasions between 1759 and 1765. The vestry agreed in 1766 that relief would be given in the workhouse only and that rents would be paid only in cases of sickness.

By 1798 between 21 and 25 persons or families received regular out relief each quarter and there was a maximum of 16 persons in the workhouse at any one time. There were above 30 house holds receiving out relief in the period 1801-3. Numbers in the workhouse were significantly higher in the period 1799-1803. From c. 1800 more cash doles were paid than relief in kind; occasionally money was paid for making clothes for paupers. In 1826 there were 44 people receiving regular outdoor relief. A payment was made for the care of a parishioner at Bethlehem hospital (Lond.) in 1756. In 1798 there was a parish surgeon; in 1799 he inoculated 51 paupers. A surgeon was still employed in 1827.

In 1807 the workhouse keeper was allowed 3s. 3d. per head a week. In 1823 and 1824 it was 3s. per head, though the amount could be varied slightly according to the number of inmates and the price of flour. Paupers were to be treated 'with kindness and humanity' and to receive three meat dinners a week 'such as is wholesome and good with pudding or dumpling'.

Some poor children were put out to service in the 17th century. Many were apprenticed in the 17th to 19th centuries, mostly in Wivenhoe and Colchester, but also in other towns in north Essex and in ports on the east coast of England from Kent to Northumberland. The boys were bound mainly to mariners, fishermen, and oyster dredgers, with a few to weavers outside the parish in the 17th and 18th centuries, and the girls usually learned housewifery.

In 1776 the cost of poor relief was £268 and in 1783-5 it averaged £289 a year. Expenditure rose to £845 in 1802, equivalent to c.15s. 6d. per head of population, and then fluctuated between £507 and £631 in 1803-11 before rising again to range between £907 and £1,152 in 1817-21, equivalent to c.16s. a head, in 1821. It fluctuated between £1,069 and £1,268 between 1822 and 1830, was £926 in 1831, equivalent to c.10s. 10d. a head, and fell further to £694 in 1834. Poor law expenditure per head in Wivenhoe was always one of the lowest in Lexden hundred.<1>

'Wivenhoe: Local government', in A History of the County of Essex: Volume 10, Lexden Hundred (Part) Including Dedham, Earls Colne and Wivenhoe, ed. Janet Cooper (London, 2001), pp. 288-290. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/essex/vol10/pp288-290 [accessed 9 June 2016].

The Listing for 14, 15 & 16 Colchester Road (NHLE no. 1225230) records:
C18 former poor house. Of red brick in Flemish-bond, 2 storeys, rectangular plan. Gambrel roof, pegtiled, with dentilled brick eaves - band Slid 3 flat dormers along the rear pitch. Three rectangular plan red brick chimneys along the ridge. First storey has 3 Plain doors irregularly spaced and 3 pairs of matching sashes, under segmental arches. Later one storey addition at rear. Inside: a large formerly-open fire place (No 14) mantlebeam reused of C16. Bonding timbers in first storey walls suggesting a roof-raising.