The Wright & Dobson factory

Wray Close was originally named ‘Storer Street’.

One of the last ‘old’ streets to be completed was Storer Street which had been built by 1916. Storer Street was renamed Wray Close when the new Stonebridge estate was constructed by Wimpey’s in 1976. Storer Street was twice as long as Wray Close is today, and had many Victorian terrace houses with courtyards extending either side along its length.

The Co-op building replaced school buildings

Another prominent feature was a small infant & junior school at the bottom of St Matthias Road, junction of Carlton Road. Today the large Co-op store occupies this site. The school playground lies under the large grey warehouse building situated at the junction of Stonebridge Road and St Matthias Road. The school itself lies under the Co-op store. The Co-op closed down in 2008.

Wright & Dobson

On the 1881 Ordnance Survey map, nothing is shown on the land that became Wright & Dobson. Then on the 1919 & 1938 Ordnance Survey maps a small lace factory is shown on the site. After 1954 the lace factory on Carlton Road became the Albany Works (Bleaching & Dyeing), and finally Wright & Dobson’s. The factory closed in 2002 and was demolished soon after.

I came across the Demolition firm Matrixgrade while researching this post, which has an interesting connection to Wright & Dobson’s. The company’s website has this entry by Christopher Rooney:

“It is perhaps no surprise to learn that Matrixgrade, a demolitions firm, was formed by a group of textile manufacturers at the company Wright & Dobson in 1979. Based on Carlton Road, just to the east of the City of Nottingham, Wright & Dobson had been carrying out dyeing and fabric printing for more than 100 years, so it perhaps appeared a little overdue when Stephen Farmery founded Wright & Dobson Football Club.

“In the early days, the team trained every day across the road from the Wright and Dobson factory, on King Edwards Park. They only played friendly matches with other Sunday teams for the first six months, before beginning to take things a little more seriously. In 1980, they joined a Sunday morning league, playing the likes of the Royal Oak, Plough and Harrow and Hucknall Colliery Welfare (now the Conference North outfit, Hucknall Town).

“They remained in this league until the mid 80's, when they took the decision to switch to Saturday football in the Spartan League. In the late 80's, the Club severed its links with Wright & Dobson, assuming the name of its new sponsor Old Rose Football Club, a pub in the Radford area of the City.”