Facts about Penge
Penge History
Penge was once a small town, which was recorded under the name Penceat in an Anglo-Saxon deed dating from 957. 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.
General Info
Penge is an area of South East London, England, within the London Borough of Bromley. It is located 3.5 miles west of Bromley, 3.7 miles northeast of Croydon, and 7.1 miles southeast of Charing Cross, the traditional center of London. The urban district consisted of three wards of Anerley, Penge, and Upper Norwood.
It incorporated the whole of Crystal Palace Park except part of the eastern side running along Crystal Palace Park Road which was then administered by the Municipal Borough of Beckenham. From 1885, the Hamlet of Penge was part of the Dulwich parliamentary constituency, which was then in Surrey, and remained in that seat until 1918, when it was transferred to the new Bromley constituency.
