Founded in 1796 by a Mr Wright, whose son, W. H. Wright carried on the business. It started in a part of Chelsea known at the time as Cook’s Ground, which by the time of this had been reduced to just a road name, now Glebe Place (the road doing a right angle at the top right of this extract). The road cutting across the bottom left corner is Old Church Street. In Cook's Ground they kept around 50 cows and two goats. Later that century the grazing fields were lost to housing development so Wrights moved to what is now 38 - 48 Old Church Street. Here they had a shop and offices.
We wonder if the cows were still gazing in London, at the time of this map, 1865. Farmer Google informs that 100 cows require about 1 acre. Some arithmetic leads to 50 cows needing the equivalent of a field a quarter of a mile, square. And that is clearly not available in the land behind, to the east, of the Church Street dairy. So perhaps they were bringing the milk in from the countryside, but still processing it (into cheese, etc.) in the Church Street dairy.
The magic has two adverts put out by Wrights (dated 1914 and 1916) both with drawings of these premises. These confirm that, certainly by this date, the cows were no longer on site but in Berkshire, Wiltshire and Gloucester. We do not trust the 'Bird's Eye View' drawing - it has many inconsistencies when compared with the buildings there now, buildings that look like they originated before 1914.
The map shows an alley running off Old Church Street, immediately opposite Paultons Street, lined with 14 near-identical L-shaped terraced buildings which appear to be rather mean little houses, with the back extensions facing this alley. Could these have been built to house the workforce at the dairy? shows that in 1971 the alley was walled off with pedestrian access only. , (and , both 2012) between numbers 38 and 44, was built over 2016-20. The red brick building that can be seen set back behind this boundary wall is the school on Glebe Place. The 1971 photo shows an archway that looks like it could be an entrance to the school.
A shows that another alley, between numbers 36 and 38, was, in 1974, being used by 'Wright's Garage'.
The dairy business was bought by United Dairies, which merged with Cow & Gate in 1959 to form Unigate.
We have not discovered when the cows' heads were erected but we'd guess Victorian. They remind us of the old shop signs such as the ironmongers' Dog and Pot which may be 16th century.
Other sources: , .
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