Martin Spence wrote:A few years ago I wrote a book about the history of Penge in south-east London.
It set out to do three things: to celebrate the quirky Victorian railway suburb where I happen to live; to reveal some of the historical processes that created the townscape of Penge as it is today; and to show how these processes only make sense as part of the development of London, the first great capitalist world-city.
This blog continues in that vein: starting from – but not limited to – Penge, it will poke about beneath the suburban familiarity of South London, root up historical stuff that takes my fancy, and maybe even have the odd bit of fun.
Far older. The name means Old Wood (or something similar). Most of the UK was covered in woods, but these were chopped down to build homes and especially ships. 6000 trees (yes, six thousand) were used PER SHIP for Nelsons fleet. (A trip to Chatham Docks is well worth a visit). The worst point for forests in the UK was after WW1 when emergency measures were brought in to protect them (we got down to about 5% of land mass as frosts, it's now revived due to government schemes to about 10%).
I like Penge. Interesting place which has a bright future.
According to Adrian Room's Dictionary of Place Names it means 'chief wood.' From Celtic roots cognate with Welsh pen ,'head' and coed, 'wood.' Recorded in 1067 as ''Penceat.' Room says that 'the survival of the Celtic name shows that there must have been a sizeable number of (Ancient) Britons living here at the time of the Anglo-Saxon settlement.'