With shopping giants Bromley and Beckenham to the east and recreational heavyweights such as Crystal Palace and Forest Hill to the north-west, SE20 is easing itself into life as a quiet and reliable hotspot.
Anerley, once an unknown, is gaining wide respect for the first time in its existence, while Penge, once a byword for dull, petit-bourgeois respectability, is finding new life with its solid stock of mid 19th century housing and a revamped high street.
Watermen's Square | The centre of Penge shows interesting early examples of what we might now term affordable housing but what our forbears would have known as almshouses. All are now in the private domain and all are sought after. The most obvious of these, its quadrangle standing back proudly from the high street, is the neo-Jacobean Watermen and Lightermen's Almshouses, now simply known as Watermen's Square. Its sixty homes were converted to private use when the almspeople moved out to Hastings in 1973. The tall chapel, overlooking all, is a home like all the rest. |
Around the square are old almshouses of varying quality. Looking west, to Penge East station, are the houses of the King William IV Naval Asylum, built by the Sailor King's widow Queen Adelaide for twelve naval widows in 1840. Their grandiose chimneys betray their Tudor aspirations and again these are popular private buys.
They are complemented by further quality almshouses on King William IV Street although a late 1940s block separates the two, testimony to the surprising amount of bomb damage sustained here in the Second World War.
North of here, across the railway, Victorian social housing came in a far more modest form. Semi detached and terraced cottages complete with four rooms and a scullery each were put up in the 1860s by the Metropolitan Association for Improving the Dwellings of the Industrious Classes.
This snappily entitled bunch of altruists sought to create homes for labourers and gardeners "serving the great houses of Beckenham".
These short roads are now popular first-time buys for arrivistes in the area. On their eastern side is a rare survival of pre-suburban Penge. This is Penge Square, a collection of cottages from 1843.
South from here the quality of housing varies, betraying the fast infill which came in the wake of the re-erection in 1851 of the Crystal Palace in Sydenham close by.
Some are almshouses, such as the cottages of Maple Road (1863), and some claim loftier ambitions, such as the large houses of Laurel Grove (1851). There are modern infills here as well, with flats and houses joining an area known as the Groves which is otherwise post-war housing built to substitute war-damaged stock.
East over Croydon Road (A213) we find inter-war semis and terraces in long roads and crescents quite unlike the rest of Penge.
Anerley Road | Anerley's housing stock is far more homogenous. Again they represent the shattering effect that Joseph Paxton's Palace had on the district, with the Anerley Estate of 1851 and the Anerley Station Estate of 1853 quickly covering the land in bricks and mortar, but nonetheless there are more modern infills than can be found in Penge. While tall and impressive Victoriana holds sway here new developments include the transformation of a railway goods yard into flats and studios. Energy-efficient homes can be discovered on William Booth Road and Sixties' town houses and post-war council blocks can be found dotted along the main drag of Anerley Road, the A214. |
In spite of these the tenor of Anerley is tall Victorian terraces, semis and detached properties long since split into multi-occupancy. Their hillside and parkside locations lend many some marvellous views.
SE20 is not overly endowed with many facilities. It is a small and compact area and the one-time juxtaposition of the Crystal Palace tended to draw the fire of any rival attractions in Anerley and Penge, such as the Anerley Tea Gardens, whose short life extended from 1841 to 1868.
Not that this will worry the residents. In every direction much awaits them on their doorstep. To the north-west is Crystal Palace Park. Many now decry the facilities of the National Sports Centre here as being obsolete but this unfair. It has a range of activities way beyond anything else in the capital.
There is the arena, astroturf pitches, a boxing hall, an indoor track, a dance studio, grass pitches and climbing walls, outdoor courts, training halls and, of course, the stadium itself.
Within their borders you can practice every sporting event under the sun from pole vaulting to judo, short tennis to American football, korfball to fencing and octopush to sub-aqua swimming.
The stadium seats 16,000 around the famous track and the Pumphouse and Pulse Centre have been established for those on a health kick. The rest of the park is a more sedate affair unless the Crystal Palace Bowl is hosting one of its musical forays.
The famous brick-and-iron stucco-covered dinosaurs are still here, all 33 of them rare survivors from the days of the palace. Eternally popular with the park's youger visitors they are now curiously outdated as archaeological discoveries have pointed up their physiological errors. The wings of the pterodactyl have been directly copied for the new canopy of the clock tower in Penge High Street.
Bett's Park | To the north are the vast nature reserves of Sydenham Hill and Dulwich Woods. To the east are the shopping nirvanas of Beckenham and Bromley while the delights of Croydon lie southwards. The only large public open space in SE20 is Betts Park. At the corner of Anerley and Croydon Roads it possesses the remains of the canal that first brought London to these parts and there is an enclosed play area. There is a Montessori nursery on Anerley Park and toddlers' groups can be found in both libraries, Anerley at Anerley Town Hall and Penge Library on Maple Road. |
One constituent college of Bromley College of Further Education can be found in SE20. This is the Hawthorn Centre on Hawthorn Grove, offering education for all ages and during days or evenings and specialising in IT, office skills, childcare and English for foreign students.
Anerley Town Hall opposite the train station, recently saved from closure by the locals, has an admirably catholic portfolio. Its Main Hall is the perfect venue for dramas, dances and concerts. The Lounge caters for weekend functions and those demanding good catering facilities. The Civic Halls does a good line in weddings, local clubs and seminars.
Shopping is a lop-sided affair in SE20. Penge has a reputation as the Empire of the Takeaway and a stroll up the high street confirms the fact. Its few restaurants are limited to a plethora of Indian establishments but things are changing. A new square was unveiled in 2001 and the Blenheim Shopping Centre has helped to change matters.
There is an Iceland in the Centre, a Sainsbury's further up the High Street, a Homebase on Oakfield Road and a Co-op on Anerley Hill. Penge Market is still a good draw, a general outdoor affair up and running between Tuesdays and Saturdays with fifty stalls and based on Maple Road.
General Practitioners can be found on Woodland Road, Penge High Street, Croydon Road and Anerley Road. The Anerley Natural Healing Centre is on Wheathill Road.
And finally there is the annual Penge Festival, begun in 1972, whose aim is to raise funds for local charities and who stage each year the likes of five-a-side football, karate and kickboxing, dances and even a gun run courtesy of naval cadets.
While the prevalence of flats in the district may have done car drivers no favours this is a good place for public transport. The railway is king here. There are no less than five train stations in this little postcode.
On the northern border of SE20 Penge East will take you in to Victoria or out to Canterbury and Dover. Penge West and Anerley can take you to London Bridge and Charing Cross or south to East Croydon.
Crystal Palace and Birkbeck stations are on the line between Beckenham Junction and Clapham Junction. Birkbeck, at the south-eastern corner of SE20, is now in great demand as it is a stop along the Croydon Tramlink, as is nearby Avenue Road. They are on Route Two, which plies its trade between Croydon and Beckenham Junction.
Buses tend to be more plentiful in Penge than in Anerley. Two main roads run from Crystal Palace Park in the north-west to the south-east. These are Penge High Street (A234) and Anerley Road (A214). Crossing these, from north-east to south-west, is Croydon Road (A213).
"There was an old person of Anerley,
Whose conduct was strange and unmannerly;
He rushed down the Strand,
With a pig in each hand,
But returned in the evening to Anerley."
With that limerick master of nonsense Edward Lear in 1846 revealed what many would have thought of a district only just coming to the notice of other Londoners. Anerley, as a name, is a newcomer. Penge, however, is ancient.
The name Penge is a rare Celtic survival in London, and it means the top or the end of the wood, a reference to the area's position in the Great North Wood. Anerley has a far more quixotic origin.
Early in the 19th century a solitary building plot was bought by Scottish silk manufacturer William Sanderson (1801 - 1871) who named his new house Anerley because, to a lowland Scot, it was just that - the annerley, or only, house in the vicinity.
Penge makes an appearance in Domesday as "a wood for fifty hogs' pannage". Penge remained a tiny hamlet and Anerley a part of Penge Common until the ill-fated Croydon Canal came through here in 1809.
The canal's attempt to deal with the hilly terrain brought about a financially unacceptable number of locks and by 1836 the land would be ceded to the Croydon & London Railway, and much of the rail line today runs along its course. Old canal cuttings can still be seen in Betts Park.
But the canal had the effect of bringing to the area its first building schemes. In 1827 Anerley and Croydon Roads were laid out, building plots established and Penge Common enclosed.
Eleven years later came the railway, and Penge and Anerley stations opened. Enter Mr. Sanderson, who gave land for Anerley station and for whom it was largely built, providing him with access to the City.
Around 1840 the impressive almshouses of Penge made their appearances. The Watermen and Lightermen's Almshouses opened in 1841 when 76 candidates were approved, consisting of 34 couples, 10 single men and 32 widows.
Their construction reflects a time when bridges were being thrown across the Thames and ferrymen and barge workers were falling on hard times.
Next door ex-Queen Adelaide sought to memorialise her late husband, William IV, with almshouses for 12 widows of commissioned naval officers. This is the Naval Asylum, with its extravagant Tudoresque chimney stacks.
In the 1860s, further north, the Metropolitan Association for Improving the Dwellings of the Industrious Classes built rows of cottages on the site of Porcupine Farm, complete with sculleries, for those "serving the great houses of Beckenham."
Penge and Anerley were being discovered by city folk and they were liking what they saw. Anerley Tea Gardens opened in 1841 close to the station. This new reputation was seemingly sealed with the coming of the mighty Crystal Palace in 1851 and the future could only be bright for new, up-and-coming Penge and Anerley.
From a population of 270 in 1841 the number of people living in Penge rose to 13,200 by 1871. The following year Penge Police Station was built, and it remains the oldest working station anywhere in London.
And then disaster struck. It is hard to recreate the national shock of the Penge Murder of 1877 but it reverberated throughout the land and in a stroke the seemingly unstoppable rise to gentility of the district was rudely broken off.
Harriet Staunton, considered a retard by her new family, was slowly starved to death by her husband, brother-in-law and sisters-in-law. Harriet was not so retarded as to not know what was going on and when her own knowledge of her impending doom was revealed it only added to the shock Victorian society felt for this poor defenceless girl.
The authorities pulled out all the stops, renaming the street (from Forbes Road to Mosslea Road) and even claiming that the thoroughfare was over the border in Beckenham. No-one was fooled, and in a stroke a genteel air was reduced to that of a "low neighbourhood".
The population kept on rising but at a steadier pace. The Second World War brought great changes to the district. Penge and Anerley were on the flight path back from London for the Luftwaffe and many unexpended bombs would find their home here. Dropping these unused armaments quickly increased the aircrafts' chances of making it back to base.
Later in the war some seventeen V-1 flying bombs came down in the district.
Local heroes in the vicinity have included H.G. Wells, Walter De La Mare, Rupert Brooke and everybody's friend Thomas Crapper.
Steve Roberts.
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