Crawley

CRAWLEY is a parish and pleasant village, a great portion of which stands in Ifield parish, on the Horsham branch of the London, Brighton and South Coast line of railway, one mile from the Three Bridges station, 30 and a half miles from London, 7 from Horsham, and 9 and a half north from Cuckfield, in the Eastern division of the county, Bottinghill hundred, East Grinstead union, rape, archdeaconry and rural deanery of Lewes, diocese of Chichester and county court district of Horsham. The church of St. John the Baptist is an old stone building, with nave, chancel, and square tower. The register dates from 1653. The living is a rectory value £98, with residence, in the gift of the representatives of Mrs. Clitherow, and held by the Rev. John Soper, B.A., of Magdalen Hall, Oxford. Here are National and British schools; also chapels for Independants and Baptists. A Roman Catholic church was erected in 1861 at a cost of upwards of £2,000: it is a brick and stone building, dedicated to St. Francis. The village is lighted by gas, and it contains some good shops, and two good inns. There are fairs for horses and cattle on the 8th of May and 9th of September, and a corn market every Wednesday evening at the 'White Hart.' About a mile north stood the county oak, at the Surrey boundary, on Lowfield Heath. The population of Crawley is 473, but, including the Ifield side, it is more than 1,000; the area is 770 acres. [Kelly's Post Office Directory of Essex, Herts, Middlesex, Kent, Surrey and Sussex, 1867.]