Sunbury was one of the larger detached houses on the east side of Peckham Rye.

It was built c.1850 as a part of the ribbon development along that side of the Rye.

It was the home of the Cash family. Thomas and Rosamund Cash are seen standing at the door (detail below), with Margaret and Elizabeth under the window.

Elizabeth married George Cadbury.

Claire Cowen comments:

This photograph is well known as one of the few pictures of Peckham Rye at that time. It includes my great aunt Elsie, who married and became Dame Elizabeth Mary Cadbury. (She is also recorded on a plaque as attending the Quaker Meeting House, now the Royal Mail Sorting Office, in Highshore Road, Peckham.)

Elizabeth's parents are John and Mary Jane Taylor, not Thomas and Rosamund Cash as stated on the Sunbury page. They moved in 1863 to Sunbury, recorded in the 1868 Ordnance Survey map under 'Taylor John (Sunbury)', nowadays council flats on Peckham Rye East.

John's brother Joseph Taylor, married to Mary Jane's sister Elizabeth (both Cash before marriage), is listed as living closer to Nunhead Lane at No.1 Rye Terrace, also part of Peckham Rye.

Elizabeth Cadbury wrote that the new home at Sunbury was 'further from town, on higher ground, and had a large piece of ground, which my father gradually transformed into a delightful garden. He was an enthusiastic gardener and botanist, and left many collections of ferns and flowers.'

I don't know how the names got mixed up. Thomas and Rosamund Cash were the brother and sister-in-law of Mary Jane and Elizabeth. They may also have lived in the Peckham Rye area.

The Cash family was another big Quaker family and I have a picture of Mary Jane's mother, Elizabeth Petipher Lucas Cash, in the Quaker dress of that day. She moved with her husband, William Cash, and family to Peckham Rye in 1824, when it was 'a pleasant country place; there were farms and fields, and a few houses with lovely gardens; nightingales sang amongst the trees, and it was as different from the crowded suburb it has become as it is possible to imagine.'

This account was written by her grand-daughter (Elizabeth Cadbury) in the 1914 introduction to a limited-edition book called 'A Dear Memory'. The book is a collection of the letters her mother (Mary Jane Taylor, 1831 - 1887) wrote to a friend over her entire lifetime.

The book contains many fascinating references to their life in Sunbury and other details about the Peckham of their day.