The Fountain is owned by the house it is in front of. The owners have been kind enough to provide me the following history about the Fountain:
The Fountain Cottage was originally a bungalow, built around the 1840s. It consisted of only the front half and bottom, so was quite small. If you look, there are differing window styles (the windows are all still original) - with Georgian casement at the bottom, front of the house and Victorian sash windows at the back half and top. It also did have an enormous amount of land with it - more or less stretching as far as the eye could see down towards Hockley, and also further down Fountain Lane. The land has been sold off over the years though by previous owners.
We have been doing some groundworks in the garden over the last few weeks, and it was quite exciting to come across the foundations of "Spring Cottage" which is where the servants and the "line" of the wall to that cottage is now where our boundary lies with the property behind ours, so giving us a very strange garden shape and size!
Augustus Mary Tawke may have been the original owner or bought the house later on. She was the one who brought the history to the house though, and I believe she was a school teacher locally, and did a lot of charitable / good works.
There is a "gazebo" built on the side of the house in the shape of half a threepenny bit, which has a stone plaque and her family coat of arms on it, with the date of 1899 and we think that is when the Fountain was also added. Although, the Fountain is also often referred to as a "horse trough".
Our understanding is that the Fountain was built by Miss Tawke to provide drinking water for the horses who were coming up from the Hockley Spa (which still exists down in the village and we believe the current owners are keen to preserve it) carrying the spa water, so that they could have a drink when they got to the top of the hill. See this link, giving a little more detail on the Spa: "The Spa"
It does also have metal rings attached to each side of the rear elevation, which we think had cups on chains attached, so that people could also get themselves a drink. Sadly it no longer works as a fountain, although to be honest we have never investigated it's "source", so there's always that outside chance that it would be possible to reconnect it.
Recently the local council identified both the house and the fountain as being of historical local interest, and whilst this is not the same as being "listed", it seems to us that it may well be the first step for them potentially going down this route.
There is also likely to be a connection with the name of the road which runs down the side of our property "Fountain Lane". It could be that the road took it's name from the fountain, which would be quite nice.
When Miss Tawke (she never did marry) decided to move on, she built herself a rather grand new home - Bullwood Hall, which is about a mile away on the left hand side, if you are travelling from our house towards Rayleigh. Over the years that building has served as a maternity hospital / women's prison / holding centre for illegal immigrants, but we understand it now stands empty.
If you fancy a walk, nearby is the start of Hockley Parish Councils Footpath 2 which is 862m long and part of the Jubilee Walk, which their website decribes as "Probably the prettiest route in the parish. Starts very adjacent to the water trough at the junction of High Road and Fountain Lane and runs northwards to the railway thereafter joining up with FP1 Hullbridge"