Early Penge Buildings (Part 2)

[Falkor]

Penge's history seems to go back further than Sydenham, and it's harder to find out information about it; apparently, the village settlement of Penge was already established in the 13th century and may have included inhabitants of Saxon origin!

Anyone shed some light on these photos/illustrations that feature unknown buildings? I'm also interested in finding photos/illustrations of buildings that have been named through various sources. The final side to this triangle is building dates and locations.

ANCIENT COTTAGES

Unknown Cottage 1 (Penge Lane)


Unknown Cottage 2 (Penge Common)


Unknown Cottage 3 (Penge Lane)


Unknown Cottage 4 (Penge Common)


Unknown Cottage 5 (Penge Lane)


Unknown Cottage 6 (Penge Common)


Unknown Cottage 7 (Westow Hill, Norwood)


Plas-y-Green (Kent House Road)

ANCIENT PUBS

Crooked Billet (Penge Lane junction with common)


Robin Hood (Croydon Road junction with Elmers End Road)
Photo taken 1875; was the pub an ancient one that fringed the common or had it been established after the enclosure? John Coulter believes it was modern, but David R Johnson thinks it might have been ancient.

ANCIENT FARMS





















Kent House/Farm (Kent House Road/Lane)








Penge Place (near concert stage in CP Park)




Elm Farm (somewhere in Beckenham)

OTHER PRE-ENCLOSURE BUILDINGS

Croydon Canal (1809) and Penge Wharf
Was the first Penge West Station on the site of Penge Wharf?

Pictures coming soon
Westwood Cottage (1820s) (Sydenham High School area)

Pictures coming soon
Rockhills (1820s) (Sydenham/Westwood Hill junction in Beckenham)

POST-ENCLOSURE BUILDINGS

Queen Adelaide's Naval Cottages (1837) (Penge Lane junction with common)
Watermen's Almshouses (1839) (Penge Lane junction with common)

Pictures coming soon
Anerley Station (1839) (Anerley Hill)


Anerley Gardens (1841) (Anerley Hill with northern stretch of remaining canal and surrounding land)


St John's Church (1850?) (Penge High Street)


Crystal Palace (1854)

OTHER LOCAL PRE-PALACE PLACE NAMES / ROADS / BUILDINGS

Anerly Arms
Anerly Grove
Anerly House
Anerly Lodge Anerly Road
Anerly Road
Beckenham Road
Belvedere Road
Cintra Lodge, Penge
Clay Farm
Clay Farm Penge
Croydon Road
District North Surrey Industrial School Penge
Gothic Lodge
Grotto House
Norwood Road, Cintra House
Penge Green
Penge Lodge
Penge Lodge, Penge Place
Poor House
Road to Becekenham
Rose Cottage, Croydon Road
Spring Grove
Sydenham Road
The Porcupine
Westow Hill, Woodhouse Cottage

Do any names match the unknown cottages? Where exactly were the buildings located? Anymore photos available?

Lot's more research planned as well as many more sources still to check, when I get the time, so will update this topic in due course or whenever members of this forum can provide additional help.

[kennyb2]

For what its worth, The Penge lane here cannot be the present Penge Lane, as its been pointed out here that the road from Beckenham was called that previously, which adds to the confusion.
The Porcupine has always intrigued me, as I used to live more or less where its marked on the old maps, I reckon it might have been a Pub possibly linked to the nearby toll gate in Hardings lane?

[Falkor]

Hi Kenny,

What is your source regarding the Beckenham Road and Penge Lane confusion? The earliest map I can find with road names is the 1862 Stanford map, and by then the roads were named the same as they are now. I think most of the illustrations were made only a few decades before, in the 1840s and one in the 1830s. Nevertheless, both streets are equally significant, for they each contained groups of buildings that fringed Penge Common. The Beckenham end of Beckenham Road is no doubt well documented. That just leaves the mysterious Penge end... Unfortunately, there doesn't appear to be any info on the Porcupine nor most of the other early Penge buildings, like this intrigueing Penge Lodge. What's even more intrigueing is all the illustrations of these timber-framed buildings that fringed the common--whether they be in Penge Lane or Beckenham Road. Number 6 was done by J C Buckler, who did most of his paintings in the 1840s. How could that building have got demolished and forgotten so easily? The pictures appear to have never been published, and the buildings don't even get a mention in books like "Penge" by Doris E Pullen. You know Sydenham had many weather-boarded style cottages, but nothing like the Ancient/Tudor timber-framed wealden style houses seen in the above illustrations--one even has a jettied front. Hopefully I'll find out more information about Penge Lane, Penge Green, and the early Penge Common buildings in due course--atleast through oral evidence--like memories and recollections published as newspaper articles etc. Again, if anybody here can shed some light then please don't hesitate to post!

[mcleanmuir]

Great photos.

The Village Pump and Pound was outside The Greyhound Pub ( now Box Bar) in Beckenham High Street.

[Falkor]

Nice one! I can now remove that photo of the Village Pump and Pound...

[Falkor]

Here is northeast Penge from the 1837 enclosure map: (rotated 90 degrees to the right)

Most of the unknown cottages seen in the pictures must match the buildings on the map (highlighted in red). I'm not sure if the pink one is a building or pond? Penge Lodge (or Penge House) is the largest!

The only buildings in Beckenham parish between Penge and Sydenham at this time were the ones linked to the tollgate that Kenny referred to, which I agree might be the Porcupine.
Edit: there was one more small building in the Beckenham slice.

BTW, the cottage shown in the bottom-right of the map was Plas-y-green (thanks to David Johnson for this info).

[Falkor]

Center of Penge in 1844

New buildings since the enclosure highlighted in orange.

[mcleanmuir]

Elm Farm was in Barnmead Road, near the railway Bridge.

[Falkor]

Thanks! I noticed Elm Farm is captioned on the 1862 Stanford map in that very place... See if you can find out anything about Matthew's Farm.

It seems quite a few of the early Penge buildings made it to the 1860s, including Penge Lodge, although a few of them might have been rebuilt:



Red = occupied
Blue = unoccupied

[mcleanmuir]

Mathews Farm.

This is the information that I have. I think this is Mathews Farm:-

Mr Walter Mathew, of 109 Mackenzie Road, Beckenham tells his personal account of the railway crash in 1866 in which as a telegraph clerk he crawled under the wreckage.

I was born on January 10th, 1850, at Copers Cope House which still stands at the corner of Southend Road and Copers Cope Road, and have lived in Beckenham all the time exept while at boarding school at Bromley, and a year or two at Keston. My father leased the farm from John Cator, and the farm lands ran along the north west side of Southend Road to Stumps Wood Hill, and at the back joined Kent House Farm and Sydenham.

Opposite Copers Cope Farm was Foxgrove Farm extending from the Churchyard to Beckenham Place. When the land was wanted by the Railway Company, my father Michael Mathew, took Stone Farm in Wickham Road opposite Hayes Lane, where there is now a garage.

[Falkor]

Thanks again! I think it's safe to remove "Matthew's Farm".

It seems like most of the early Penge buildings were gone by 1894. Of the ones that did survive I'm only confident about the almshouses and Plas-y-green. There's big question marks over most of the other buildings as possibly being rebuilt since the 1830s/1840s. No need to take the village center any further; Penge Lodge and the other main candidates for the illustrations of unknown ancient cottages were most definitely demolished by 1894, hence the lack of photos. Only a really early photo of the 1860s/1870s might show these buildings, but unlike, say, Southend, Penge's photographic record is seriously lacking before the time of postcards as evident from all the books I've read.



Up next: Tollgate area, Croydon Road, Kent House.

[Falkor]

Tollgate area

1844 - the building at the top is some kind of lodge or gatehouse at the junction of Old Cople Lane and the trackway from Abbey's Farm, Sydenham. It survived until 1853 when the Crystal Palace Company moved in. The building at the bottom--if it is a building--is on the 1860s map but is gone by 1894. The tollgate was by the middle next to the 2 small buildings.


1860s - The tollgate was still in operation. It seems the building on the left might have survived beyond 1894, but the building on the right was definitely gone by then.

Croydon Road

1837


1844


1860s - not enough map coverage to find out what happened to the building southeast of the common (seen in the previous two maps). The building at the top looks to be rebuilt. As for the buildings in the middle, they are confusing! Could the Robin Hood have been founded in such tiny buildings? It's doubtful. Nevertheless they now seem to form outbuildings for the Robin Hood, and might not even be the original two seen in the earlier maps; if they are then they might have survived until after 1894, but these two beasts are very difficult to track.
EDIT: building southeast of common = Clay Farm (also on 1860s map).

Kent House / Farm

1844


1894 - Still looks the same, except part of a new yard has been added.

Elm Farm

1844 - Elm Farm was the closest building to Penge in the Beckenham parish; I wonder if it was ancient like Kent House?

Up next: Anerley.
P.S. Penge Place and Rockhills isn't worth investigating. Rockhills was built in the 1820s as a single house then extended over time and demolished in about 1960.

[kennyb2]

blimey Falkor !!!!talk about information overload.....

I am sure my source re Penge lane was off this site somewhere.
as was the location of the toll gate in Hardings lane, also shown on one off your other maps.

My conjecture is that Penge lane perhaps turned right at the Billet where it met Penge Common? it then followed the present Penge lane where it joins Parish lane.
Parish lane the seems to follow it present route more or les via Newlands Park; past the Porcupine, whatever that was; probably that all disappeared with the building of the railway. It more or less conforms to the Rocques map.
I don`t think that the present Penge lane is long enoungh at about 300 yards to have accomodated all those old cottages.

Bit confused as to which date to which map, but Penge square buildings still exist, the Y shaped bit by the railway is Bycroft street, a lot of building shown there, the little terrace demolished about 1971, all the others except the Queen Alex pub must have gone in the war, couple V1 hits nearby,
Interesting to see the areas still not showing any building by late 1890's.

The Smithy shown behind the Billet, is the area that used to be used for storing the old wheeled stalls from the market, I`m almost sure I ca remember seeing someone fitting an iron wheel rim over a fire in there years ago.
The whole of that area in front of the Billet was levelled by V1 bomb, which is why the Billet is the shape it is.
The buildings as far as Penge square behind it in Penge lane were demolished mid 1970`s: somewhere I read that the set back buildings now forming Penge square possibly marked the original line of the old Penge lane, as there seems to be no logic for them being set where they now are.

[mcleanmuir]

Do you think the church in the image of Penge Place (PengePlace4.jpg) is St John's?

[Falkor]

My conjecture is that Penge lane perhaps turned right at the Billet where it met Penge Common? it then followed the present Penge lane where it joins Parish lane.

That's possible, but then the history of Beckenham Road needs to be taken into account. Some other avenues of research may yield an answer to this. BTW, there was a trackway (Old Cople Lane) coming from the Penge Lane/Beckenham Road junction that went across the common to Penge Place. That junction is very important, too, for it was originally known as "Penge Green"--a name going back to maps surveyed in the 1500s!

Parish lane the seems to follow it present route more or les via Newlands Park; past the Porcupine, whatever that was; probably that all disappeared with the building of the railway.

The Porcupine was apparently a farm, according to the Pullen novel. It might have been gone before the enclosure.

I don`t think that the present Penge lane is long enoungh at about 300 yards to have accomodated all those old cottages.

Only 3 pictures are confirmed to be in Penge Lane, and there was about 3-5 worthy candidates if you include the original Penge Square and tollgate pair.

Bit confused as to which date to which map, but Penge square buildings still exist, the Y shaped bit by the railway is Bycroft street, a lot of building shown there, the little terrace demolished about 1971, all the others except the Queen Alex pub must have gone in the war, couple V1 hits nearby,

All dates are underneath each map. That Penge Square is interesting, and appears to be rebuilt on top of pre-enclosure buildings that started the shape. The Queen Alex. pub needs investigating after tracing it to the 1894 map, although it's probably a rebuilding, but when was the business first established?

The whole of that area in front of the Billet was levelled by V1 bomb, which is why the Billet is the shape it is.

There's a day by day account of every bomb that fell in Penge during WW2, which was opened to the public in 1999. I've not had a chance to read it yet.

I read that the set back buildings now forming Penge square possibly marked the original line of the old Penge lane, as there seems to be no logic for them being set where they now are.

That shape definitely goes back to pre-enclosure times, but again, not sure about the buildings.
http://www.ideal-homes.org.uk/bromley/p ... square.htm

Dating in part from before 1843, these cottages are one of few survivals of pre-suburban Penge.

Although substantially altered on more than one occasion they are set back from the other cottages in Penge Lane, perhaps indicating that they follow an earlier route for the lane.

Hmmm... tough call!

Do you think the church in the image of Penge Place (PengePlace4.jpg) is St John's?

Yes. The image is mirrored or inverted, but is displayed correctly in David Johnson's book.

[kennyb2]

That 1860 map is very confusing, I can`t relate the london chatham railway line to the present position of the brighton railway, or the old canal to the line of Penge lane at all,
More like where its Green Lane would be today, the railway position is all wrong surely?
It says as far as I can make out from croyden, to sydenham, so that must be it, but railway still in the wrong place.
Where is that account of bomb damage to be found Falkor?

Kent House farm site is immediately identifiable toady by the shape of the 1960's estate built there, huge allotment site behind it, down to the Pool river, which must once have been its lands.
Family of a friend of mine kept pigs near there till the late 1950's I think.

[Falkor]

I reckon the railway was being planned around the time the map was surveyed.

Where is that account of bomb damage to be found Falkor?

Among the letters of Sidney Hodgson at Bromley Library.


Here comes Anerley and Norwood, the final side of the common...

1837

Only 1 building in the Cintra region! Croydon Canal = dead = 4 years before "Anerley Arms Tea Gardens" brings it back to life.

1844


Untold new buildings!!! The Gardens, which have now oepened, seem to be based around the Anerley Arms hotel pub. The "only" (Anerley) other building besides that and the station must be the one bottom left (there is a photo of it in David Johnson's book).

1852 (limited coverage)





Some new buildings in Anerley Gardens! Not worth tracking the fate of the rest, since most are post-enclosure with only 1 possibly ancient.

[mcleanmuir]

Falkor,

Elm Farm1 and Kent House6, these images are taken from Borrowman's Past and Present book.

[Falkor]

Has that Borrowman book got any information about Clay Farm? I saw it for sale, but it costs a fortune. I lived in Beckenham from about 94-97 and worked in the high street from 99-2001, so am quite familiar with the area, and will eventually pick up a copy of that book for the right price. I've got the Beckenham and West Wickham book, which I've had for some time now.

[mcleanmuir]

Sorry nothing in the book about Clay Farm.

There are a couple of Borrowmans in Beckenham Library.