Note 2 — HENRY S. SIMMONDS. (continued 2)
Reading edition
The Village of Penge stands adjacent to the boundary with Kent, to the London and Brighton Railway, and to the London, Chatham and Dover Railway near the Crystal Palace, four miles N.N.E. of Croydon; includes new streets on what was formerly a common with picturesque oaks; and has a post office of the name of Penge Bridge and Penge Lane. The Chapelry contains also the Crystal Palace with its Railway Station; and it ranks politically as a Hamlet of Battersea. Acres, 840; population in 1851, 1,169; in 1861, 5,015; houses, 668; population 1868, nearly 10,000. Villas are very numerous, and King William 4th Naval Asylum, the Watermen's Alms Houses, and the North Surrey Industrial Schools are here. The Naval Asylum is for decayed widows of naval officers, and was founded by Queen Adelaide. The Watermen's Alms Houses were built in 1850, at a cost of £5000, and comprises 41 residences. The Industrial Schools is for the parishes northward of the Thames, occupies a plot of seven acres, with farm and kitchen garden; and at the census of 1801 had 748 inmates. The Chapelry is threefold, consisting of Penge proper, and one formed in 1868. The livings are P. Curacies in the diocese of Winchester. Value of Penge, £750; of Upper Penge, £800. Patrons of both Trustees.—Wilson's Gazetteer of England and Wales.
Penge, for ecclesiastical purposes, is a separate parish, and has its own Overseers and supports its own poor. The Church of St. John the Evangelist is a modern gothic stone structure with tower and spire. The population of St. John's E. Parish in 1871 was 8,345, and the area is 500 acres. The Church of Holy Trinity, South Penge, to which a district was assigned in 1873, is built of brick with stone dressings consisting of chancel, nave and side aisles. The foundation stone was laid by the Right Hon. the Earl of Shaftesbury, R.G., April 17, 1872. The Church cost £7,500, and is capable of seating 1,000. The Register dates from 1874. The living is a vicarage. There are Chapels for Independents, Baptists, and Wesleyans, and National Schools.