London Welsh trades: dairies (2)

By 1900, half of London's dairies were Welsh-owned, but almost all disappeared in the second half of the twentieth century. Traces of London's former Welsh dairies can still be found in central London. In particular, the frontages of Lloyd's Dairy on Amwell Street and French's Dairy on Rugby Street remain intact.

Today, French's Dairy sells fabulous jewellery and has graced the cover of Japanese Vogue. Lloyd's Dairy, aka Unpackaged, offers a wide range of organic foods sold loose and encourages customers to bring their own containers.

London Welsh trades: dairies (1)

This fading signage, a short walk from the London Welsh Centre, is a reminder that the area was a centre for Welsh dairies in the nineteenth century. Although the Dairy Outfit Co was not itself a Welsh company, it supplied dairies with a wide range of equipment so would have had many Welsh customers.

In the early nineteenth century, Welsh milk girls sold their products on the streets. Soon, though, the trade became more settled with a move to corner dairy stores which also sold butter and cheese. Some even had their own cows on-site. Over time, many expanded to become general stores: the original corner shops.

London Welsh trades: cattle drovers

Welsh cattle drovers had been coming to London since before the thirteenth century, and for hundreds of years the trade kept growing. By the 1700s, cattle were used as a form of money transfer: cows were safer than cash on the two or three-week journey. Many received their final fattening-up in the fields of rural Islington, and finished their journey in Smithfield.

As London grew, so did the cattle trade. It prospered under the Tudors and expanded with the city in the eighteenth century - tens of thousands of cattle made the journey every year. Often, blacksmiths travelled with them as the cows wore horseshoe-like shoes. The drovers also carried money, messages and news in both directions. Because their trustworthiness was so important, they were licensed and had to be married householders over 30 years old.

This lively trade eventually died away in the 1850s, when the railways replaced drovers travelling on foot. However, all those trading contacts didn't go to waste. The cattle drovers would be replaced by the famous Welsh dairies of Victorian London.