{"id":17624,"date":"2025-07-18T09:04:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T08:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/?p=17624"},"modified":"2025-07-15T11:48:28","modified_gmt":"2025-07-15T10:48:28","slug":"big-lunch-street-party-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/?p=17624","title":{"rendered":"Big Lunch Street Party – 2010"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Big Lunch Street Party:<\/strong> The Eden project<\/a> is a visitor attraction built in a disused clay pit near St Austell in Cornwall, its name coming from the Biblical garden and with a mission to celebrate plants and the natural world, reconnect people with them and to regenerate damaged landscapes and give the world a better future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Eden project launched The Big Lunch in 2009 as “a little experiment: to see what the transformative effect of getting to know our neighbours might be<\/em>.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I was invited by a friend to be with him on Sunday 18 July 2010 as the official photographers at the Big Lunch Street Party in Wrayfield Road in North Cheam, part of a typical 1930s surburban development in what was then Surrey and is now a part of the London Borough of Sutton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The party started with several tugs of war between teams from the odd and even sides of the street<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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You can find out more about Wrayfield Rd on Streetscan<\/a> which reports that though in some respects it is close to an average UK postcode, though having rather more married couples than average in these family homes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Fishing for ducks was popular with children<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

People here are healthier than the average and with higher household wealth than 89% of England and Wales with low unemployment and significantly higher levels of self-employment and entrepreneurship. There are low levels of deprivation and it is what I would describe as an affluent outer-London suburb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Some of those present could remember last street party for the 1977 Silver Jubilee street shown in the pictures on one garden wall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And like many such streets, it is visually rather boring. It’s around a thousand feet long, lined mainly by solidly built semidetached houses, with a few detached properties – a little under 60 homes in all, developed by Warner and Watson Ltd, and completed in 1933\/4. More details on the estate and the cost of homes back then on my post in My London Diary – now these houses cost around a thousand times as much. Had they just gone up by inflation they would be around \u00a350,000 but in 2025 you are looking at around \u00a3750,000. At least one person who had moved in in 1933 was at the party 77 years later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Several couples had lived on the street for a very long time<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But the event was an interesting one and I’ve written more about it on My London Diary. Getting to know the people who live around you is a good idea and I’m sure things like this help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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People look at he original newspaper advert for the houses in the street<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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There was plenty of eating and drinking taking place along the middle of the street<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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A toast<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Some bunting<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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And sun hats were a good idea<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The event received sponsorship from some local businesses and organisations – and the fire brigade brought a fire engine for kids to take the driving seat. Th local MP came and spoke, there was a fine singer and as I was leaving a local band came to play. The party was expected to keep going into the night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A heat of the egg and spoon race.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Text and many more pictures on My London Diary at Big Lunch Street Party<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Flickr<\/a> – Facebook<\/a> – My London Diary<\/a> – Hull Photos<\/a> – Lea Valley<\/a> – Paris<\/a>
London’s Industrial Heritage<\/a> – London Photos<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

All photographs on this page are copyright \u00a9 Peter Marshall.
Contact me to buy prints or licence to reproduce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Big Lunch Street Party: The Eden project is a visitor attraction built in a disused clay pit near St Austell in Cornwall, its name coming from the Biblical garden and with a mission to celebrate plants and the natural world, reconnect people with them and to regenerate damaged landscapes and give the world a better … Continue reading Big Lunch Street Party – 2010<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,3],"tags":[1916,21250,17096,21253,21242,21255,5063,17,1343,21254,80,21243,21247,21251,697,83,21252,21256,40,21246,21248,6409,4789,21241,21249,21245,21244],"class_list":["post-17624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-londonphotos","category-my-own-work","tag-1916","tag-affluent","tag-band","tag-eating-and-drinking","tag-eden-project","tag-egg-and-spoon","tag-games","tag-london","tag-london-photos","tag-lunch","tag-my-london-diary","tag-north-cheam","tag-outer-london","tag-outer-london-suburb","tag-party","tag-peter-marshall","tag-semidetached","tag-singer","tag-street-party","tag-streetscan","tag-suburbia","tag-surrey","tag-sutton","tag-the-big-lunch","tag-thirties","tag-tug-of-war","tag-wrayfield-road"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17624"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17624\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17625,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17624\/revisions\/17625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}