[Bell Historians] Re: Counties

[Dickon Love]

Tim Jackson:
"So, for example, I found that Penge was incorrectly listed as the
traditional county of Kent and this has now been corrected to the
traditional county of Surrey."

Penge is a thorny one.  The area was a detached part of Battersea, Surrey,
although the main parish was actually 12 miles away.  There wasn't really
anything there apart from some woodland until the start of the 19th Century
("Penge" means "hill in the forest").  The church (the first in Penge) was
built in 1862 when people started to live there, the parish was transferred
from Surrey to Kent in 1900 and it was given an independent Urban District
Council.  That was about the time the KCACR came into being, so Penge has
always been regarded as Kent.  It lost its independence in 1965 when it
became part of Bromley.

So it is correct to say that Penge was traditionally Surrey, but not
incorrect to say that it wasn't Kent.  Gazetteers such as abcounties.co.uk
represent this as Penge, Surrey/Kent.

DrL