Penge

Penge (pɛndʒ) is a suburb of South East London, England, now in the London Borough of Bromley, west of Bromley, north east of Croydon and south east of Charing Cross. Penge was once a small hamlet, recorded under the name Penceat in an Anglo-Saxon deed dating from 957 in which King Eadwig gave Penge Common to thane Lyfing. Most historians believe the name of the town is derived from the Celtic word Penceat, which means 'edge of wood' and refers to the fact that the surrounding area was once covered in a dense forest. The original Celtic words of which the name was composed referred to 'pen' ('head'), as in the Welsh 'pen', and 'ceat' ('wood'), similar to the Welsh 'coed', as in the name of the town of Pencoed in Wales. The largest amosite mine in the world, in South Africa, was named Penge apparently because one of the British directors thought the two areas were similar in appearance. Penge was an inconspicuous area with few residents before the arrival of the railways. A traveller passing through Penge would have noticed the large common with a small inn on its boundary. Penge Green appears as Pensgreene on Kip's 1607 map. The green was bounded to the north by Penge Lane, the west by Beckenham Road and the southeast by the Crooked Billet. On a modern map that is a very small area, but the modern-day Penge Lane and Crooked Billet are not in their original locations, and Beckenham Road would have been little more than a cart track following the property line on the west side of Penge High Street. Penge Lane was the road from Penge to Sydenham which is now named St John's Road and Newlands Park. There was also an old footpath crossing the Green leading to Sydenham, that was known as Old Penge Lane. After the London, Chatham and Dover Railway was built, Penge Lane crossed the line by level crossing. When this crossing was closed, Penge Lane was renamed and Old Penge Lane became the present-day Penge Lane. The 1868 Ordnance Survey map shows the Old Crooked Billet located to the southeast of the current location.