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Jamaica Road, THORNTON HEATH, CR7 7HD

In the distance, the spire of St Saviour's. Buxton Road is very close to Croydon University Hospital and as a result draconian parking restrictions apply.

Bensham Lane is a suburban road in Thornton Heath, south London.

Croydon University Hospital (previously the Mayday Hospital) was founded as Croydon Union Infirmary, a Poor Law institution. This foundation plaque is on the ground floor corridor of the original nineteenth-century building, now the Woodcroft Wing. In the list of ex-officio Guardians, one can see where a name has been cut out above Edmund Byron and replaced by a blank strip of marble. This marks the name of Jabez Balfour, who was a Justice of the Peace and ex-officio Guardian in 1883. He was a non-conformist Liberal politician (for a while, member of Parliament for Tamworth), temperance advocate and founder of a chain of interlocking banks and building societies. In 1892 it was revealed that his Liberator Building Society managed to pay high rates of interest only by paying out capital deposited by more recent customers - in other words, that it was a pyramid or Ponzi scheme - and Balfour fled to Argentina, later returning to serve a period of imprisonment. Clearly after this it was felt that he should be expunged from the historical record and his name cut out of the foundation plaque.

Croydon University Hospital (previously the Mayday Hospital) was founded as Croydon Union Infirmary, a Poor Law institution. This foundation plaque is on the ground floor corridor of the original nineteenth-century building, now the Woodcroft Wing. In the list of ex-officio Guardians, one can see where a name has been cut out above Edmund Byron and replaced by a blank strip of marble. This marks the name of Jabez Balfour, who was a Justice of the Peace and ex-officio Guardian in 1883. He was a non-conformist Liberal politician (for a while, member of Parliament for Tamworth), temperance advocate and founder of a chain of interlocking banks and building societies. In 1892 it was revealed that his Liberator Building Society managed to pay high rates of interest only by paying out capital deposited by more recent customers - in other words, that it was a pyramid or Ponzi scheme - and Balfour fled to Argentina, later returning to serve a period of imprisonment. Clearly after this it was felt that he should be expunged from the historical record and his name cut out of the foundation plaque.

Sunset over the junction of Bensham Lane with Frant Road and Queen's Road.

For more information about Ancient Lights signs, see the information on another image showing such a sign, Image Bensham Lane cuts across the regular street pattern of nineteenth-century developments (it clearly marks a much older route), resulting in various points like this where houses are staggered rather than forming neat terraces. The area where the car is parked is one such, and would be an attractive space for further development which would block the light to the further house were this right to light not asserted.

Photograph taken from Queen's Road. Frant Road is straight ahead, and the ancient Bensham Lane runs from left to right.