The Wright family lived at Wootton Court (now called The Hayes), to the south of Leek Wootton, from 1882-1952.
It was purchased by industrialist Francis Beresford Wright, owner of the Butterley Company in Derbyshire, in the hope that the clean Warwickshire air would be beneficial to his wife, Adeline. Francis died in 1911 and Adeline in 1924, when Wootton Court was inherited by their son, Arthur Fitzherbert Wright.
After extensive refurbishment, Arthur, his wife Daisy and their nine children moved into the house in 1927.
The Wright family at Wootton Court, 1935
During World War II Arthur and Daisy’s daughter-in-law, Doreen, wife of their eldest son, Gilbert, moved in to help look after them and their home. In 2012, the Leek Wootton History Group published Doreen’s wartime diary.
Doreen’s DiaryAfter Arthur’s death in 1952 the family sold the house and moved to Stone Edge, which overlooks Wootton Court.
Early in the new millennium, the house was converted into flats and its name reverted to The Hayes (it had been called The Hayes or Green Hayes prior to the Wright family’s ownership).