CRAWLEY

Crawley's history can be traced as far back as the Stone (Neolithic) Age, from flint tools and burial mounds and later a Bronze Age sword found in the area. Iron-Age forts were established to extract ore in the areas now covered by Broadfield, Bewbush and Southgate and an Iron Age camp was once on the site of Goffs Park.

These were expanded by the Romans who arrived at the start of 100 AD. Evidence of over 100 furnaces has been found in the area now covered by Broadfield.

Crawley's name is derived from the Anglo Saxon crawe leah - a 'crow infested clearing'. The spelling changed during the Middle Ages - Crauleia (c1203), Crawele (c1250) and Croule (1279) - with the more familiar spelling Crawley appearing around 1316.

The town itself is a mixture of three parishes, including Ifield and part of Worth, both of which are mentioned in the Domesday book of 1086. Crawley's oldest building, Worth Church originates from Saxon times. It is now thought to be one of the oldest buildings of its kind in the UK.

The first mention of Crawley comes from 1203, when a licence to hold a weekly market was granted. These markets would have centred around the church, but later moved to the High Street when markets in churches were banned. Less than 50 years later, the Church of St Margaret in Ifield was built. The 13th Century church can still be seen today in the Ifield Village Conservation Area.

Crawley continued to grow steadily over the next 400 years, helped by the continuing success of the iron industry. In 1450, the increase in traffic through Crawley led to the opening of the George Hotel in the High Street.

The discovery of Brighton by the Prince Regent made Crawley an ideal place to rest on the journey from London, and the town rapidly developed to cope with the demand.

The arrival of the railway in the 1840s made Crawley more accessible and it continued to prosper during Victorian times,

An airfield was opened nearby in the 1930s, and soon after, the circular `Beehive' terminal building was built - a radical design at the time. Gatwick Aerodrome was requisitioned by the R.A.F. during WW2, then returned to commercial use until it was closed in 1956 to be redeveloped as an alternative to Heathrow. Gatwick Airport was opened by H.M.The Queen in June 1958.

However, it was after the war that the town was to see its most dramatic changes in its history. In 1947, Lewis Silkin MP announced that the area around Crawley, Three Bridges and Ifield had been chosen as one of the locations for a New Town.

The Government created eight self-supporting towns in a circle between 20 and 30 miles from the heart of London. Crawley was designated a new town on January 9, 1947.

The original idea for Crawley was to merge the villages of Three Bridges and Ifield with the small market town of Crawley by filling in the gaps.

The designated area at that time was nearly 6,000 acres, stretching about three and a half miles from border to border. In the beginning the planners envisaged nine residential neighbourhoods, each based on a village concept, grouped around a town centre with an industrial estate to the north.

Every neighbourhood was to have the same basic structure, though each would develop a character of its own. Each would have a neighbourhood centre with enough shops to meet day to day needs, plus a primary school, church, community centre and pub.

By 1962 Crawley had a thriving community of about 60,000, and the original nine neighbourhoods increased to ten.

Since then Crawley has continued to grow. In 1983 its boundaries were extended by 1,800 acres, stretching to the M23 in the east and the new Ifield West development in the west.

Today with a population of around 100,000 and with proposals for a 14th neighbourhood to the north east of the town, Crawley is the largest inland town in West Sussex.

Sources: www.crawley.gov.uk