After their marriage, Thomas and Ann Wright set up home near London Bridge, close to Thomas’s business. They had three children, though only their daughter Ann survived childhood. They decided to move south, joining the exodus of families from the City which was becoming a place of business and manufacture rather than residency. The rapid improvement in roads and the building of Westminster and Blackfriars bridges enabled Thomas to commute much more easily and Dulwich, with its country air and spa at Dulwich Wells, provided an attractive alternative to the city. Commuting was a novelty as shown in this poem by Robert Lloyd written in 1757, just ten years before the Wrights moved to Bell House:
Some three or four miles out of town,
(An hour’s ride will bring you down),
He fixes on his choice abode,
Nor half a furlong from the road:
And so convenient does it lay
The stages pass it ev’ry day:
And then so snug, so mighty pretty,
To have a house so near the city!
In 1767 Thomas built Bell House and a year later replaced two ancient cottages nearby with what is now Pickwick Cottage. The eponymous bell is inscribed with the date 1770 so must have been installed a little after the house was built. In 1783 Thomas leased three more fields and the use of the mill pond on Dulwich Common with the ‘right to take fish out...by angling and no other method’. The gardens stretched to what is now the lake in Dulwich Park and also included part of Frank Dixon Close. The Wrights continued making improvements such as planting trees including perhaps the beautiful medlar tree which still stands outside the kitchen window.
Lease of Bell House showing extent of garden. Source: Dulwich College