Chelsea Bun House

It seems to have started business early in the 18th century as Jonathan Swift wrote in his journal to Stella on 28 April 1711:[4] A fine day, but begins to grow a little warm; and that makes your little fat Presto sweat in the forehead.

In the original of these shops, for even of Chelsea buns there are counterfeits, are preserved mementos of domestic events, in the first half of the past century.

These buns have afforded a competency, and even wealth; to four generations of the same family; and it is singular, that their delicate flavour, lightness and richness, have never been successfully imitated.

Mrs. Hand respectfully informs her friends and the public, that in consequence of the great concourse of people which assembled before her house at a very early hour, on the morning of Good Friday last, by which her neighbours (with whom she has always lived in friendship and repute) have been much alarmed and annoyed; it having also been intimated, that to encourage or countenance a tumultuous assembly at this particular period might be attended with consequences more serious than have hitherto been apprehended; desirous, therefore, of testifying her regard and obedience to those laws by which she is happily protected, she is determined, though much to her loss, not to sell Cross Buns on that day to any person whatever, but Chelsea buns as usual.

[nb 1] Anne Manning wrote a fictional account of the place in The Old Chelsea Bun-House: a Tale of the Last Century, which was published in 1855.