Comparison with the first survey of Beckenham at this scale, made in the 1860s', reveals a remarkable difference.  The area then was almost entirely rural in character, with Beckenham itself no more than a village, but the intervening years had seen it grow into a significant suburb, almost a town, with urban district status only a couple of years away.  All this was made possible largely through the development of the railways, a complicated network of lines turning Beckenham into a junction (a role augmented today by the Croydon tramway), although landowners had mixed feelings over the benefits the trains would bring.  This growth saw a wave of new building, including a complete rebuilding of the parish church, and this continued into the 20th century, so that the village is a great deal more modern than we might expect.  Indeed, for interesting Victorian architecture there is more to be found on the Penge side of the map.

However, the first problem caused by the map lies in the distinction between the two villages, for much of the area we think of as Penge is in fact Beckenham. The latter parish stretched further west than might be expected, with a spur reaching right up to the Crystal Palace, while Penge, until the late 19th century a detached portion of Battersea parish, was across the border in Surrey.  Whether this situation was always the case seems a moot point, for Kent House tradition­ally took its name from being the first house in Kent.  Nevertheless, the border shown on this map is clear, even if the lettering does sometimes dissolve into a plethora of initials: so 3ft.Tk.F. means three feet from the track of fence, S.S. means single stream, R.H. root of hedge, F.F. face of fence, F.W. face of wall, and FP. face of palings rather than the footpath it might signify in another context.

Of the two, Penge was the first to see significant growth, encouraged by the development of leisure facilities both at Crystal Palace and Anerley, and by the canal and later railway, the Brighton line, running just west of this map. As the following figures show, its population rose rapidly between 1851 and 1881, then levelled off, while Beckenham's largely grew in the latter decades of the century:

 By the time of this map, therefore, Beckenham was once again the larger of the two, but this was to a large part due to population growth on the fringes of Penge, near to Penge station ‑ which was, of course, in Beckenham! Properly in Penge, however, was the Police Station, opened at the corner of Green Lane in 1872 and replacing a temporary station opened two years earlier. Police stations seldom feature in the historical notes to these maps, but that at Penge has spe­cial interest as being the oldest still in use in the Metropolis. Just five years after its opening it must have been a hive of activity, for in 1877 the so‑called Penge Murder attracted national publicity, Harriet Staunton having been starved to death at 34 Forbes Road by her husband and his mistress. It was in vain that the authorities changed the name of the road to Mosslea Road, or protested that the actual house was across the border in Beckenham; the aura of gentility had been lost forever and it acquired the unfair reputation of being a 'low neighbourhood', only slightly modified later into that of a joke suburb, the Neasden of south London.

This was certainly not the impression Queen Adelaide would have wanted when she gave E100 towards the building of the Royal Asylum, the Almshouses of the Company of Waterman and Lightermen.  The building, one of the most impressive in south London, was opened in 1841 when 76 candidates were approved: 34 married men (i.e. couples), 10 single men, and 32 widows. The building, on three sides of a quadrangle, was in an extravagantly late‑Tudor or Jacobean style, with a magnificent gatehouse at the rear, complete with ogee towers and oriel window.  The building is normally given as the work of George Porter, a Bermondsey architect of little distinction who appears to have received no follow‑up commissions to this masterpiece. It seems likely, therefore, that the real genius behind the work was his assistant, S.S.Teulon, a suspicion given sub­stance by stylistic similarities with almshouses built for the Dyers Company in King Henry's Walk, Islington (since demolished) and perhaps with Tortworth Court in Gloucestershire

The principal benefactor to the almshouses was John Dudin Brown, a freeman of the Company of Watermen, who gave two acres of land plus generous sums of money, and who later contributed towards St John's church, built in 1850 on an adjacent site, described at the time as a church both for the watermen and the people of Penge, and the work of Edwin Nash and J.N.Round. Queen Adelaide, meanwhile, had founded another asylum, named after her husband King William IV and reflecting the status of Penge at the time, for this was for the widows of 12 commissioned naval officers. Also built in the 1840s, this was designed by Philip Hardwicke in a more domestic Tudor style, tall chimneys the principal ornament.

Across the railway the cottages of the Alexandra Estate stand out. These were built 1866‑8 by the Metropolitan Association for Improving the Dwellings of the Industrious Classes, on the land of the old Porcupine Farm, bought at a favourable cost from the Duke of Westminster. They are remarkable in being semi‑detached houses rather than the usual terraces, the houses having their entrances at the side and comprising four rooms plus a small scullery. By 1877 a three‑storey Beckenham Coffee House & Public Baths had been built to serve them, together with an Institute and Mission Hall nearby to serve as a social centre. Holy Trinity church was built in 1878, founded by a tea merchant Francis Peek (related to the Peek, Frean biscuit family) who gave not just the new living to the Rev S.Whitfield Daukes but also a prestigious boys' school opposite ‑ named after the landowner Albermarle Cator ‑ and the hand of his eldest daughter Lydia in marriage.

There is a homespun charm to the Alexandra Cottages, and to their accompa­nying terraced cottages in Princes Road. These houses were intended for labourers and gardeners 'serving the great houses of Beckenham', highlighting the very different building project going ahead at the eastern side of the map. John Cator had acquired the Manor of Beckenham in 1773; further lands were added, including Copers Cope Farm north of the village centre, and Kent House Farm towards Penge and his family would be responsible for much of the devel­opment of the village during the 19th century. The Old Manor House stood on Bromley Road, just opposite the church ‑ it was demolished in the 1880s to make way for Council Offices and a Public Hall ‑ but for his main residence Cator built Beckenham Place, at the top of Stumps Hill north east of this map. During the 19th century this was leased to William Peters, who established a cricket ground nearby. Kent House was let out as a farm but the family acquired the Clock House, built in the early 18th century and at one time home to Admiral Sir Piercy Brett. At one time John Cator's brother, Joseph lived here although it was later let out to tenants. It took its name from the large clock on the stable block but in 1896 the house itself was demolished. The stables lasted until the 1920s but the clock had already been removed to Beckenham Place.

Although they were principal landowners, the Cator family spent much of their time at the family home in Norfolk, Woodbastwick Hall, purchased by John Cator's son Barwell in 1813. A sporting eccentric, Barwell soon ran up major debts and in the 1820s parliamentary approval was sought and obtained to devel­op his lands for housing. He was thus able to mortgage them and this was sufficient to ward off the creditors, and no appreciable development was started until the 1860s. Land was sold off cheaply to the railway, but more profitably for upmarket housing, and by 1864 the pattern of roads shown north of the railway was drawn up, including Copers Cope Road, The Avenue and others. The houses were to be large detached ones in ample grounds, with the usual clauses forbid­ding their use for trade, education and the like; broad gravel roads, lined with forest trees, were meant to attract a suitable clientele, most of whom were expected to commute to the city. In 1866 the Abbey School was built on the site of a former gravel pit; partly intended for the sons of local inhabitants, it was a boarding school, with boys given the privacy of cubicles within the dormitories. The school's social cachet is shown by the fact that many boys went on to Eton, Harrow or Winchester. In 1876 Christ Church was built on the old Tuns Field, where an annual fair had been held until c.1860. To maintain the character of the area the Cators also insisted on a clause when they sold land to the railway com­panies, whereby the latter paid £2,000 additional rent if trains ran at certain times on Sundays. This is normally taken to mean during Divine Service, but Albermarle Cator seems to have been as concerned that trains should not call in the after­noon, and that the 'district would not be inundated by trippers from London', the effects of which he had doubtless seen at Crystal Palace and Anerley. Certainly a clause in an early timetable that the 1.56 Down and 2.30 and 4.30 Up trains 'will not stop as advertised' seems to have very little bearing on the traditional times for church services.

The first railway to arrive had been the Mid Kent Railway, an ambitious title for a line that ran less than 5 miles along the edge of the county from Lewisham to Beckenham. This opened in 1857, the Cator family further protecting the value of their land by stipulating there should be no goods depot, and arranging for the landscaping of the railway verges. The following year Beckenham became a junc­tion when the West End of London & Crystal Palace line was opened from Shortlands, forming a somewhat circuitous route to London via the Crystal Palace; this became part of the London Chatham & Dover Railway, who in 1863 opened their direct route to London via Penge. Finally, in 1864 the Mid Kent Railway, by now effectively part of the South Eastern Railway, opened a 3'i4 mile branch from New Beckenham to Addiscombe Road, Croydon. Within seven years, therefore, no less than four railway lines had been built across our map, although their rapid construction would leave a legacy for future generations in the form of frequent flooding, especially where the Mid Kent crossed low above the Chaffinch Brook.  Confusion seems to have reigned regarding the stations too. For some reason the original New Beckenham station was built south of the junction but it was quickly realised that trains would be better divided at the junction into portions for Addiscombe and Beckenham, a practice that continued until the 1920s. To cope with this a new junction station was opened for New Beckenham as early as 1866, a locomotive frequently pushing the Beckenham Junction portion round the spur, unusual in those days of indifferent brakes and a rattling, jolting experience for those on board. The first New Beckenham station therefore had a life of only two years, and the LC&D station at Beckenham Road fared little better; ironically this latter is being rebuilt in 1999, for the Croydon Tramway which will follow the up (southernmost) track and terminate in the former yard at Beckenham Junction, alongside Rectory Road.

The railway brought prosperity to Beckenham, as the large villas and their well tended gardens showed, and for many years trains were said to run with crowd­ed first class carriages. Public road transport was predictably less successful, and an attempt by the Penge & Anerley Omnibus Co to run an hourly horse‑bus ser­vice from Crystal Palace to Beckenham Junction in 1883 quickly closed due to lack of support; not until 1895 did Tillings operate a more durable service, while vari­ous projects for tramways never came beyond Penge. Nevertheless, by the turn of the century, the first flush of prosperity was slightly on the wane, and in 1911 some 13% of houses at Penge, and 9% at Beckenham stood empty, apparently because they were considered 'old‑fashioned'. This largely hit the Penge end of Beckenham, but during the 20th century many of the fine villas have been replaced by (admittedly upmarket) flats.

 The Cator influence was along lasting one, the leafy roads north of Beckenham Junction continuing to give the area much appeal. Penge is, at first glance, a great deal less fashionable, but the historian willing to explore that area on foot will find much of architectural interest. This continues up to the present, with the rebuilding of Holy Trinity following an arson attack in 1993; dormer windows give extensive natural light into the Victorian building, the apse has become an open air garden, and the fact that the church was rebuilt in so exciting a manner, when so many suburban churches have been made redundant, is proof of the commu­nity spirit of the area. John and Albemarle Cator would have approved.