Short answers, pulled from the story.
"Penny Lane" was released as a double A-side single with "Strawberry Fields Forever" on the 13th of February 1967 in the United States and on the 17th of February 1967 in the United Kingdom. It was the first Beatles single to be sold with a picture sleeve in Britain.
Session musician David Mason played the piccolo trumpet solo on "Penny Lane". He recorded the part on the 17th of January 1967 and was paid twenty-seven pounds and ten shillings for the session. McCartney was inspired to use the instrument after watching Mason play it on a BBC television broadcast of the second Brandenburg Concerto by Johann Sebastian Bach.
No. The "Strawberry Fields Forever" / "Penny Lane" single was held at number 2 on the UK Record Retailer chart behind Engelbert Humperdinck's "Release Me", despite outselling it. A chart protocol that counted only the better-selling side of a double A-side effectively halved the Beatles' total sales figure. It was the first Beatles single to miss number 1 since "Please Please Me" in 1963.
Penny Lane is a road in the south Liverpool suburb of Mossley Hill. The name also refers to the surrounding junction of Smithdown Road and Allerton Road, and to the roundabout at Smithdown Place that served as a major bus terminus. Lennon, McCartney and Harrison regularly stopped at the roundabout during their school years while changing buses.
The Beatles had a policy of not including previously released singles on their albums. After Capitol Records demanded a new release and the song was issued as a single in February 1967, it was excluded from Sgt. Pepper despite having been written for that album. George Martin later called the decision to omit both "Penny Lane" and "Strawberry Fields Forever" "the biggest mistake of my professional life".
As of 2009, Catherine Holmes a Court-Mather held the copyright to "Penny Lane". The rights were carved out from ATV's sale of the Northern Songs catalogue to Michael Jackson in 1985, at which point Jackson allowed the song to be given to Robert Holmes a Court's teenage daughter instead. This makes it one of the few Lennon-McCartney songs not owned by Sony Music Publishing.