Remember the post A Revisionist Surrey Iron Railway which was published in April of this year? News today revealed this very estate – with its erroneous Surrey Iron Railway history information boards – has won awards. And that in what happens to be a particular (yet uninspiring) anniversary year of the Surrey Iron Railway. Couldn’t get much better could it? Surely someone ought to nominate the Surrey Iron Railway history boards at the Lion Green estate for an excellence in what can only be a historical accuracy?

The Lion Green Road project in Coulsdon wins awards. BBC News.

Lion Green Road in Coulsdon, comprising 157 homes across five distinctive 13-sided blocks, was named winner of the 2026 Stirling Prize by the Royal Institute of British Architects (Riba). Designed by Mary Duggan Architects and built with RUFF Architects, it combines affordable and private housing for Croydon Council. BBC News.

Not a single mention is made of the Surrey Iron Railway nor its information boards. It could be a taboo subject for all one knows!

This is what was said in the post written by London Rail earlier this year:

Since there is nothing that cannot be known about what is one of the world’s earliest public railways… one must ask why… a substantial part of route the railway has been altered considerably… as well as the prevalent and accepted history being blighted somewhat. This series of information boards on the Surrey Iron Railway (and its extension the Croydon, Merstham and Godstone Iron Railway) are replete with many errors including the depicted alignments taking on new routes which were not ever part of the original railway!

A couple of comments from that post includes one by Pedantic of Purley who lives in the locality:

These boards, as you highlight, are unbelievably bad and I really do not know where to start. With the benefit of local knowledge (the route is a five minute walk from my house) I can see error after error. What is so tragic is that the true route could have easily been determined with a five minute web search.

A former resident of Coulsdon by the name of Peter also expressed his concerns:

Yes, these are terrible misrepresentations of the true route of this historic railway. The fact that so many remains of the route still exist (in places) between Croydon, Coulsdon and Merstham makes it all the more inexpilcable. I would hope that these information boards are taken down and the job of replacing them is given to a knowledgeable person.

There are several information boards dotted around the Lion Green Estate – each replete with errors. The worst example is one which has been shown before. It denotes that the route of the Surrey Iron Railway reaches Croydon via Hackbridge!

Surrey Iron Railway to Croydon from Mitcham via Hackbridge!

One of the information boards dotted around the Lion Green estate in Coulsdon.

One of the other erroneous information boards. The placing of the railway embankment at Coulsdon could have been done better than this – for it is in the wrong location! Even the alignment of the railway is considerably wrong because the line took a lengthy ‘S’ alignment to the west of Coulsdon before attaining the embankment itself.

Even the route onward to Merstham is wrong for the line is denoted as going west of the village, when the line (this being the Croydon, Merstham and Godstone Iron Railway) headed eastward towards Rockshaw Road and Quarry Dean Farm. The original terminus of the railway is now somewhere in the centre of the M23 motorway!

The original location where the iron railway ended is now built over by the M23 motorway. Mullens Williams Harrison must be turning in his grave!