Origins

The area may have been settled during the Mesolithic period: locally manufactured flints of the Horsham Culture type have been found to the southwest of the town.^[1] Tools and burial mounds from the Neolithic period, and burial mounds and a sword from the Bronze Age, have also been discovered.^[4][5] Crawley is on the western edge of the High Weald, which produced iron for more than 2,000 years from the Iron Age onwards.^[6] Goffs Park—now a recreational area in the south of the town—was the site of two late Iron Age furnaces.^[7] Ironworking and mineral extraction continued throughout Roman times, particularly in the Broadfield area where many furnaces were built.^[4][8]

St John the Baptist's Church from the southeast

In the 5th century, Saxon settlers named the area Crow's Leah—meaning a crow-infested clearing, or Crow's Wood.^[9] This name evolved over time, and the present spelling appeared by the early 14th century.^[4] By this time, nearby settlements were more established: the Saxon church at Worth, for example, dates from between 950 and 1050 AD.^[10]

Although Crawley itself is not mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086,^[11] the nearby settlements of Ifield and Worth are recorded.^[12] The first written record of Crawley dates from 1202, when a licence was issued by King John for a weekly market on Wednesdays.^[13] Crawley grew slowly in importance over the next few centuries, but was boosted in the 18th century by the construction of the turnpike road between London and Brighton. When this was completed in 1770, travel between the newly fashionable seaside resort and London became safer and quicker, and Crawley (located approximately halfway between the two) prospered as a coaching halt.^[14] By 1839 it offered almost an hourly service to both destinations.^[15][16] The George, a timber-framed house dating from the 15th century, expanded to become a large coaching inn, taking over adjacent buildings. Eventually an annexe had to be built in the middle of the wide High Street; this survived until the 1930s.^[17] The original building has become the George Hotel, with conference facilities and 84 bedrooms; it retains many period features including an iron fireback.^[18][19]

Crawley's oldest church is St John the Baptist's, between the High Street and the Broadway. It is said to have 13th-century origins,^[20] but there has been much rebuilding (especially in the 19th century) and the oldest part remaining is the south wall of the nave, which is believed to be 14th century. The church has a 15th-century tower (rebuilt in 1804) which originally contained four bells cast in 1724. Two were replaced by Thomas Lester of London in 1742; but in 1880 a new set of eight bells were cast and installed by the Croydon-based firm Gillett, Bland & Company.^[21][22][23]

Railway age and Victorian era

Crawley signal box in 2008

The Brighton Main Line was the first railway line to serve the Crawley area. A station was opened at Three Bridges (originally known as East Crawley)^[24] in the summer of 1841. Crawley railway station, at the southern end of the High Street, was built in 1848 when the Horsham branch was opened from Three Bridges to Horsham. A line was built eastwards from Three Bridges to East Grinstead in 1855. Three Bridges had become the hub of transport in the area by this stage: one-quarter of its population was employed in railway jobs by 1861 (mainly at the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway's railway works near the station).^[25] The Longley company—one of South East England's largest building firms in the late 19th century, responsible for buildings including Christ's Hospital school and King Edward VII Sanatorium in Midhurst—moved to a site next to Crawley station in 1881.^[26] In 1898 more than 700 people were employed at the site.^[27]

There was a major expansion in house building in the late 19th century. An area known as "New Town" (unrelated to the postwar developments) was created around the railway level crossing and down the Brighton Road;^[25][28] the West Green area, west of the High Street on the way to Ifield, was built up; and housing spread south of the Horsham line for the first time, into what is now Southgate. The population reached 4,433 in 1901, compared to 1,357 a century earlier.^[29] In 1891, a racecourse was opened on farmland at Gatwick. Built to replace a steeplechase course at Waddon near Croydon in Surrey, it was used for both steeplechase and flat racing, and held the Grand National during the years of the First World War.^[4] The course had its own railway station on the Brighton Main Line.^[30]

In the early 20th century, many of the large country estates in the area, with their mansions and associated grounds and outbuildings, were split up into smaller plots of land, attracting haphazard housing development and small farms.^[31] By the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 Crawley had grown into a small but prosperous town, serving a wide rural area and those passing through on the A23 London–Brighton road. Three-quarters of the population had piped water supplies, all businesses and homes had electricity, and piped gas and street lighting had been in place for 50 years.^[25] An airfield was opened in 1930 on land near the racecourse. This was a private concern until the Second World War when it was claimed by the Royal Air Force.^[4]

New Town

In May 1946, the New Towns Act of 1946 identified Crawley as a suitable location for a New Town;^[2] but it was not officially designated as such until 9 January 1947.^[32] The 5,920 acres (2,396 ha) of land set aside for the new town were split across the county borders between East Sussex, West Sussex and Surrey. Architect Thomas Bennett was appointed chairman of Crawley Development Corporation. Members of the working group developing a master Plan included Lawrence Neal, Alwyn Sheppard Fidler, Caroline Haslett, Molly Bolton, Sir Edward Gillett, Eric Walter Pasold and Alderman James Marshall.^[33] A court challenge to the designation order meant that plans were not officially confirmed until December 1947. By this time, an initial plan for the development of the area had been drawn up by Anthony Minoprio.^[34] This proposed filling in the gaps between the villages of Crawley, Ifield and Three Bridges.^[35] Bennett estimated that planning, designing and building the town, and increasing its population from the existing 9,500 to 40,000, would take 15 years.^[36]

Work began almost immediately to prepare for the expansion of the town. A full master plan was in place by 1949. This envisaged an increase in the population of the town to 50,000, residential properties in nine neighbourhoods radiating from the town centre, and a separate industrial area to the north.^[34] The neighbourhoods would consist mainly of three-bedroom family homes, with a number of smaller and larger properties. Each would be built around a centre with shops, a church, a public house, a primary school and a community centre.^[35] Secondary education was to be provided at campuses at Ifield Green, Three Bridges and Tilgate.^[37] Later, a fourth campus, in Southgate, was added to the plans.^[38]

At first, little development took place in the town centre, and residents relied on the shops and services in the existing high street. The earliest progress was in West Green, where new residents moved in during the late 1940s. In 1950 the town was visited by the then heir to the throne, Princess Elizabeth, when she officially opened the Manor Royal industrial area. Building work continued throughout the 1950s in West Green, Northgate and Three Bridges, and later in Langley Green, Pound Hill and Ifield. In 1956, land at "Tilgate East" was allocated for housing use, eventually becoming the new neighbourhood of Furnace Green.^[34]

Expectations of the eventual population of the town were revised upwards several times. The 1949 master plan had allowed for 50,000 people, but this was amended to 55,000 in 1956 after the Development Corporation had successfully resisted pressure from the Minister for Town and Country Planning to accommodate 60,000. Nevertheless, plans dated 1961 anticipated growth to 70,000 by 1980, and by 1969 consideration was given to an eventual expansion of up to 120,000.^[34]

Queen's Square in the central shopping area, looking towards the bandstand, The Body Shop, Marks & Spencer and the former Woolworths store

Extended shopping facilities to the east of the existing high street were provided. The first stage to open was The Broadwalk in 1954, following by the opening of the Queen's Square development by Her Majesty The Queen in 1958. Crawley railway station was moved eastwards towards the new development.^[34]

One of the neighbourhood churches: St Mary's in Southgate (now a locally listed building)

By April 1960, when Thomas Bennett made his last presentation as chairman of the Development Corporation, the town's population had reached 51,700; 2,289,000 square feet (212,700 m²) of the factory and other industrial space had been provided; 21,800 people were employed, nearly 60% of whom worked in manufacturing industries, and only seventy people were registered as unemployed. The corporation had built 10,254 houses, and private builders provided around 1,500 more. Tenants were by then permitted to buy their houses and 440 householders had chosen to do so by April 1960.^[36]

A new plan was put forward by West Sussex County Council in 1961. This proposed new neighbourhoods at Broadfield and Bewbush, both of which extended outside the administrative area of the then Urban District Council. Detailed plans were made for Broadfield in the late 1960s; by the early 1970s building work had begun. Further expansion at Bewbush was begun in 1974, although development there was slow. The two neighbourhoods were both larger than the original nine: together, their proposed population was 23,000. Work also took place in the area now known as Ifield West on the western fringes of the town.^[39]

By 1980, the council identified land at Maidenbower, south of the Pound Hill neighbourhood, as being suitable for another new neighbourhood, and work began in 1986. However, all of this development was undertaken privately, unlike the earlier neighbourhoods in which most of the housing was owned by the council.^[39]

In 1999, plans were announced to develop the 14th neighbourhood on land at Tinsley Green to the northeast of the town; this was given the go ahead in 2011 and is officially the town's 14th neighbourhood, named Forge Wood after the ancient woodland that is enclosed within the development. After a temporary halt to the proposals when a possible expansion at Gatwick Airport was announced,^[40] construction started in 2015.^[41] Forge Wood is to have a maximum of 1900 homes.^[42] Development of another neighbourhood began in 2012 on the western side of Crawley in the Horsham district, named Kilnwood Vale. A plan for a new railway station fell through.^[3]

Local government

Borough of Crawley shown within West Sussex

Crawley Town Hall, on The Boulevard in the town centre

Ordnance Survey map of the Crawley area, 1932

Crawley became a parish in the sixteenth century, having previously been a chapelry in the parish of Slaugham. When district and parish councils were established under the Local Government Act 1894, Crawley was given a parish council and included in the Horsham Rural District. The parish was significantly enlarged in 1933, when it absorbed the neighbouring parish of Ifield.^[43]

Following the designation as a New Town in 1947, the parish of Crawley was enlarged in 1953 to take in territory from the parishes of Slaugham and Worth. Three years later, on 1 April 1956, the parish of Crawley was made an urban district, making it independent from Horsham Rural District.^[44][43] The Local Government Act 1972 led to the district being reformed as a borough in April 1974,^[45] gaining a mayor for the first time.^[46] The new borough in 1974 also saw its boundaries enlarged, gaining other areas which had been included in the designated area of the New Town as well as the area north of the town including Gatwick Airport, which had previously been in Surrey.^[47]

The Urban District Council received its coat of arms from the College of Heralds in 1957. After the change to borough status a modified coat of arms, based on the original, was awarded in 1976 and presented to the council on 24 March 1977. It features a central cross on a shield, representing the town's location at the meeting point of north–south and east–west roads. The shield bears nine martlets representing both the county of Sussex and the new town's original nine neighbourhoods. Supporters, of an eagle and a winged lion, relate to the significance of the airport to the locality. The motto featured is I Grow and I Rejoice—a translation of a phrase from the Epistulae of Seneca the Younger.^[45] Despite a petition to save it,^[48] the old Crawley Town Hall, which was built in 1964, was demolished in 2020^[49] and a new Crawley Town Hall was completed in 2023.^[50]

Initially, the district (and then borough) council worked with the Commission for New Towns on many aspects of development; but in 1978 many of the commission's assets, such as housing and parks, were surrendered to the council. The authority's boundaries were extended in 1983 to accommodate the Bewbush and Broadfield neighbourhoods.^[51]

The borough remains part of the local two-tier arrangements, with services shared with West Sussex County Council. The authority is divided into 13 wards, each of which is represented by two or three local councillors, forming a total council of 36 members. Most wards are coterminous with the borough's neighbourhoods, but three neighbourhoods are divided: Broadfield, Northgate, and Pound Hill into "Pound Hill North and Forge Wood" and "Pound Hill South and Worth". The council is elected in thirds.^[52]

As of the 2021 local elections, the council is run by Labour in coalition with the sole independent councillor,^[53] with seats held as follows:

United Kingdom government

Crawley Borough is coterminous with the parliamentary constituency of Crawley. Henry Smith won the seat at the 2010 general election and was re-elected at the 2015, 2017 and 2019 general elections. Laura Moffatt, a member of the Labour Party, was the MP for Crawley from 1997 to 2010; she was the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Health, Alan Johnson.^[54][55] In the 2005 general election, the winning margin was the slimmest of any UK constituency: Moffatt won by just 37 votes.^[56]

Brook House and Tinsley House Immigration Removal Centres, operated by UK Visas and Immigration, are within the grounds of Gatwick Airport in Crawley.^[57][58]

Data from the Home Office's national identity database at Doncaster, South Yorkshire, was backed up to servers in Crawley for disaster recovery and business continuity purposes. The Identity Documents Bill 2010, proposed in May 2010 and passed in September 2010, authorised the destruction of all data stored for the identity card scheme brought about by the Identity Cards Act 2006.^[59]

Climate

Crawley lies within the Sussex Weald, an area of highly variable terrain so that many microclimates of frost hollows, sun traps and windswept hilltops will be encountered over a short distance. During calm, clear periods of weather this allows for some interesting temperature variations, although most of the time, when mobile westerly airstreams persist, the weather is typically Oceanic like the rest of the British Isles. Gatwick is the nearest weather station that publishes long-term averages that give an accurate description of the climate of the Crawley area, although more recently the Met Office has also published data for its nearby weather station at Charlwood. Both weather stations are about 3 miles north of Crawley town centre and at similar altitudes.

Generally, Crawley's inland and southerly position within the UK means temperatures in summer are amongst the highest in the British Isles, Charlwood recording 36.3C (97.3F)^[68] and Gatwick recording 36.4C (97.5F)^[69] on 19 July 2006, just 0.2C and 0.1C lower, respectively, than the UK monthly record for that day set at Wisley, 20 miles to the west. The overall maximum stands at 36.5C (97.7F)^[70] at Charlwood, set on 10 August 2003. The absolute record for Gatwick is the aforementioned 36.4C. Before this, the highest temperature recorded at Gatwick was 35.6C (96.1F), also in August 2003.^[71] The maximum temperature was 25.1C (77.2F) or higher on 15.9 days of the year^[72] on average (1971-00) and the warmest day will typically rise to 29.4C (84.9F).^[73]

The overall minimum for Gatwick Airport for the period from 1960 is −16.7C (1.9F), set in January 1963. More recently, Charlwood fell to −11.2C (11.8F)^[74] and Gatwick −11.1C (12.0F)^[75] on 20 December 2010. Typically the coldest night at Gatwick will fall to −8.9C (16.0F).^[76] Air frost is recorded on 58.2 nights at Gatwick^[77] (1971-00)

Sunshine totals in Crawley are higher than many inland areas due to its southerly location: Gatwick averaged 1,574 hours per year over 1961–90. No data is available for 1971 to 2000, but given increases at comparable sites nearby, annual averages are likely to be over 1,600 hours.

Snowfall is often heavier in the Sussex Weald than in many other low-lying parts of central and southern England due to the proximity of moisture-laden southerly tracking low-pressure systems bringing easterly winds and snow to areas from South London southwards. However, again due to the southerly location of the area, with warmer air from the nearby English Channel, the snow is often temporary as low-pressure systems track north bringing in milder air; areas immediately north of London tend to have less accumulation, but lying for a longer duration.

Rainfall is lower than the English average, but higher than many other areas of the South East. 1mm of rain or more falls on 116.7 days of the year.^[78]

Neighbourhoods and areas

The Southgate neighbourhood's parade of shops

Each neighbourhood has colour-coded street name signs (Southgate example pictured).

Neighbourhoods of Crawley, identified in the table

Church Road in Lowfield Heath village, looking east towards St Michael and All Angels Church. No houses remain here; a hotel, depots and light industrial units have replaced the earlier development.

There are 14 residential neighbourhoods,^[81] each with a variety of housing types: terraced, semi-detached and detached houses, low-rise flats and bungalows. There are no residential tower blocks, apart from the 8-storey Milton Mount Flats at the North end of Pound Hill.^[82] Many houses have their own gardens and are set back from roads. The hub of each neighbourhood is a shopping parade, community centre and church, and each has a school and recreational open spaces as well.^[39] Crawley Development Corporation's intention was for neighbourhood shops to cater only to basic needs, and for the town centre to be used for most shopping requirements. The number of shop units provided in the neighbourhood parades reflected this: despite the master plan making provision for at least 20 shops in each neighbourhood,^[83] the number actually built ranged from 19 in the outlying Langley Green neighbourhood to just seven in West Green, close to the town centre.^[36]

Each of the 14 residential neighbourhoods is identified by a colour, which is shown on street name signs in a standard format throughout the town: below the street name, the neighbourhood name is shown in white text on a coloured background.^[84]

There are areas which are not defined as neighbourhoods but which are closely associated with Crawley:

• The Manor Royal industrial estate is in the north of the town. Although it is part of the Northgate ward, it is allocated a colour: its street name signs feature the word "Industrial" on a black background.
• Crawley's town centre is in the southernmost part of Northgate. Its street name signs do not follow the standard format of the neighbourhood signs but display only the street name.
• Gatwick Airport was built on the site of a manor house, Gatwick Manor, close to the village of Lowfield Heath. Most of the village was demolished when the airport expanded, but the Grade II*-listed St Michael and All Angels Church,^[86] remains. The site of Lowfield Heath village, now occupied by warehouses and light industrial units,^[87] is on the airport's southern boundary, between the perimeter road and the A23 close to Manor Royal.
• Worth was originally a village with its own civil parish, lying just beyond the eastern edge of the Crawley urban area and borough boundary;^[88] but the development of the Pound Hill and Maidenbower neighbourhoods has filled in the gaps, and the borough boundary has been extended to include the whole of the village. The civil parish of Worth remains, albeit reduced in size, as part of the Mid Sussex district.
• Tinsley Green, a hamlet in Worth parish,^[89] is now within the Forge Wood neighbourhood. Its houses, farms and public house, the Greyhound (at which the British and World Marbles Championship has been held annually since 1932),^[90] lie on or around an east–west minor road running from the main Balcombe–Horley road to the Manor Royal estate.^[91]
• The hamlet of Fernhill is 1+1⁄2 miles (2.4 km) east of Gatwick Airport^[92] and the same distance south of Horley.^[93] It has been wholly within the borough since 1990, when the borough and county boundary was moved eastwards to align exactly with the M23 motorway.^[94] Until then, its houses and farms straddled the boundary.^[95] Fernhill was the site of a fatal aeroplane crash in 1969: 50 people (including two residents) died when Ariana Afghan Airlines Flight 701 crashed into a house on Fernhill Road.^[96]

Manufacturing industry

Crawley was already a modest industrial centre by the end of the Second World War. Building was an important trade: 800 people were employed by building and joinery firms, and two—Longley's and Cook's—were large enough to have their own factories.^[115] In 1949, 1,529 people worked in manufacturing: the main industries were light and precision engineering and aircraft repair. Many of the jobs in these industries were highly skilled.^[83][115]

Industrial development had to take place relatively soon after the new town was established because part of the corporation's remit was to move people and jobs out of an overcrowded and war-damaged London. Industrial jobs were needed as well as houses and shops to create a balanced community where people could settle.^[116] The Development Corporation wanted the new town to support a large and mixed industrial base, with factories and other buildings based in a single zone rather than spread throughout the town. A 267-acre (108 ha)^[116] site in the northeastern part of the development area was chosen. Its advantages included flat land with no existing development; proximity to the London–Brighton railway line, the A23 and the planned M23; space for railway sidings (which were eventually built on a much smaller scale than envisaged); and an adjacent 44-acre (18 ha) site reserved for future expansion, on the other side of the railway line (again, not used for this purpose in the end). Princess Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II) opened the first part of the industrial area on 25 January 1950;^[13] its main road was named Manor Royal, and this name eventually came to refer to the whole estate.^[83]

The Corporation stipulated that several manufacturing industries should be developed, rather than allowing one sector or firm to dominate. It did not seek to attract companies by offering financial or other incentives; instead, it set out to create the ideal conditions for industrial development to arise naturally, by providing large plots of land with room for expansion, allowing firms to build their own premises or rent ready-made buildings, and constructing a wide range of building types and sizes.^[83][117]

Despite the lack of direct incentives, many firms applied to move to the Manor Royal estate: it was considered such an attractive place to relocate to that the Development Corporation was able to choose between applicants to achieve the ideal mix of firms, and little advertising or promotion had to be undertaken.^[117] One year after Manor Royal was opened, eighteen firms were trading there, including four with more than 100 employees and one with more than 1,000.^[83] By 1964, businesses which had moved to the town since 1950 employed 16,000 people; the master plan had anticipated between 8,000 and 8,500. In 1978 there were 105 such firms, employing nearly 20,000 people.^[83][118]

Thales Group opened a new manufacturing and office complex in Crawley in 2009. The site consolidated manufacturing and offices in the Crawley area and the south-east of England.^[119]

Service industry and commerce

Former Virgin Atlantic head office.

While most of the jobs created in the new town's early years were in manufacturing, the tertiary sector developed strongly from the 1960s. The Manor Royal estate, with its space, proximity to Gatwick Airport and good transport links, attracted airport-related services such as logistics, catering, distribution and warehousing; and the corporation and private companies built offices throughout the town. Office floorspace in the town increased from 55,000 square feet (5,100 m²) in 1965 to a conservative estimate of 453,000 square feet (42,100 m²) in 1984.^[83] Major schemes during that period included premises for the Westminster Bank British Caledonian and The Office of the Paymaster-General.^[83] The five-storey Overline House above the railway station, completed in 1968, is used by Crawley's NHS primary care trust and various other companies.^[120][121]

Schlumberger House, the head office of WesternGeco at Gatwick Airport

Companies headquartered in Crawley include Doosan Babcock Energy,^[122] WesternGeco,^[123] Virgin Atlantic,^[124] Virgin Atlantic's associated travel agency Virgin Holidays, William Reed Business Media,^[125] Dualit^[126] and the Office of the Paymaster-General.^[83] Danish company Novo Nordisk, which manufactures much of the world's insulin supply, has its UK headquarters at the Broadfield Business Park,^[127] and BDO Global has an office in Crawley.^[128] The UK headquarters of Nestlé is in the Manor Royal area of Crawley.^[129] In addition the registered offices of TUI UK and Thomson Airways are located in Crawley.^[130][131]

British Airways took over British Caledonian's former headquarters near the Manor Royal estate, renamed it "Astral Towers" and based its British Airways Holidays and Air Miles divisions there.^[132][133] Other companies formerly headquartered in Crawley include Astraeus Airlines,^[134] British United Airways,^[135] CityFlyer Express,^[136] CP Ships,^[137] First Choice Airways,^[138] GB Airways,^[139] Laker Airways,^[140] Tradewinds Airways,^[141] and Air Europe.^[142]

Crawley has numerous hotels, including The George Hotel, dated to 1615. It is reputedly haunted.^[143]

Shopping and retail

34 and 36 High Street - Grade II late 18th-century brick building with sash windows, two chimneys and a tiled roof.

The Friary Way entrance to County Mall

Even before the new town was planned, Crawley was a retail centre for the surrounding area: there were 177 shops in the town in 1948,^[115] 99 of which were on the High Street.^[83] Early new town residents relied on these shopping facilities until the Corporation implemented the master plan's designs for a new shopping area on the mostly undeveloped land east of the High Street and north of the railway line.^[116] The Broadwalk and its 23 shops were built in 1954, followed by the Queen's Square complex and surrounding streets in the mid-1950s.^[39] Queen's Square, a pedestrianised plaza surrounded by large shops and linked to the High Street by The Broadwalk, was officially opened in 1958 by Queen Elizabeth II.^[144] The town centre was completed by 1960, by which time Crawley was already recognised as an important regional, rather than merely local, shopping centre.

In the 1960s and 1970s, large branches of Tesco, Sainsbury's and Marks & Spencer were opened (the Tesco superstore was the largest in Britain at the time). The shopping area was also expanded southeastwards from Queen's Square: although the original plans of 1975 were not implemented fully, several large shop units were built and a new pedestrianised link—The Martlets—was provided between Queen's Square and Haslett Avenue, the main road to Three Bridges.^[83] The remaining land between this area and the railway line was sold for private development by 1982;^[83] in 1992 a 450,000 square feet (41,800 m²)^[145] shopping centre named County Mall and anchored by an Owen Owen department store was opened there.^[146] Its stores includes major retailers such as The Entertainer, Boots, WHSmith and Superdry as well as over 80 smaller outlets.^[147] The town's main bus station was redesigned, roads including the main A2220 Haslett Avenue were rerouted, and some buildings at the south end of The Martlets were demolished to accommodate the mall.

A regeneration strategy for the town centre, "Centre Vision 2000", was produced in 1993.^[148] Changes brought about by the scheme have included 50,000 square feet (4,600 m²) of additional retail space in Queen's Square and The Martlets, and a mixed-use development at the southern end of the High Street on land formerly occupied by Robinson Road (which was demolished) and Spencers Road (shortened and severed at one end). An ASDA superstore, opened in September 2003, forms the centrepiece.^[149] Robinson Road, previously named Church Road, had been at the heart of the old Crawley: a century before its demolition, its buildings included two chapels, a school, a hospital and a post office.^[150]

Road

The London–Brighton turnpike ran through the centre of Crawley, forming the High Street and Station Road. When Britain's major roads were classified by the British government's Ministry of Transport between 1919 and 1923,^[167] it was given the number A23. It was bypassed by a new dual carriageway in 1938^[168] (which forms the A23's current route through the town), and then later to the east side of the town by the M23 motorway, which was opened in 1975. This connects London's orbital motorway, the M25, to the A23 at Pease Pottage, at the southern edge of Crawley's built-up area. The original single-carriageway A23 became the A2219.

The M23 has junctions in the Crawley area at the A2011/A264 (Junction 10) and Maidenbower (area of Crawley) (Junction 10A). The end of the motorway at Pease Pottage is Junction 11. The A2011, another dual-carriageway, joins the A23 in West Green and provides a link, via the A2004, to the town centre. The A2220 follows the former route of the A264 through the town, linking the A23 directly to the A264 at Copthorne, from where it then runs to East Grinstead.

Rail

Crawley station, with five storeys of offices above the ticket office and concourse area

The first railway line in the area was the Brighton Main Line, which opened as far as Haywards Heath on 12 July 1841 and reached Brighton on 21 September 1841. It ran through Three Bridges, which was then a small village east of Crawley, and a station was built to serve it.^[169]

A line to Horsham, now part of the Arun Valley Line, was opened on 14 February 1848. A station was provided next to Crawley High Street from that date.^[170] A new station was constructed slightly to the east, in conjunction with the Overline House commercial development, and replaced the original station which closed on 28 July 1968. The ticket office and Up (London-bound) platform waiting areas form the ground floor of the office building.^[171]

The urban area of Crawley is served by a total of three rail stations including Ifield railway station. Due to Crawley's expansion this station is now surrounded by the town's western areas. Opened as Lyons Crossing Halt on 1 June 1907 to serve the village of Ifield, it was soon renamed Ifield Halt, dropping the "Halt" suffix in 1930.^[172]

Regular train services run from Crawley, and also Ifield, to London Victoria and London Bridge stations, Gatwick Airport, East Croydon, Horsham, Bognor Regis, Chichester, Portsmouth and Southampton. Three Bridges has direct Thameslink trains to Bedford and Brighton.^[173][174]

Bus and Fastway

A Metrobus double-decker bus at Crawley bus station

Crawley was one of several towns where the boundaries of Southdown Motor Services and London Transport bus services met. In 1958 the companies reached an agreement which allowed them both to provide services in all parts of the town.^[175] When the National Bus Company was formed in 1969, its London Country Bus Services subsidiary took responsibility for many routes, including Green Line Coaches cross-London services which operated to distant destinations such as Watford, Luton and Amersham. A coach station was opened by Southdown in 1931 on the A23 at County Oak, near Lowfield Heath: it was a regular stopping point for express coaches between London and towns on the Sussex coast. This traffic started to serve Gatwick when the airport began to grow, however.^[175] When the National Bus Company was broken up, local services were provided by the new South West division of London Country Bus Services, which later became part of the Arriva group. Metrobus acquired these routes from Arriva in March 2001, and is now Crawley's main operator.^[176] It provides local services between the neighbourhoods and town centre, and longer-distance routes to Horsham, Redhill, Tunbridge Wells, Worthing and Brighton.^[177]

In September 2003 a guided bus service, Fastway, began operating between Bewbush and Gatwick Airport.^[178] A second route, from Broadfield to the Langshott area of Horley, north of Gatwick Airport, was added on 27 August 2005.^[179]

Gatwick Airport

Gatwick is the world's second busiest single-runway international airport.^[180]

Gatwick Airport was licensed as a private airfield in August 1930.^[181] It was used during the Second World War as an RAF base, and returned to civil use in 1946. There were proposals to close the airport in the late 1940s, but in 1950 the government announced that it was to be developed as London's second airport.^[182] It was closed between 1956 and 1958 for rebuilding. Her Majesty The Queen reopened it on 9 June 1958. A second terminal, the North Terminal, was built in 1988.^[183] An agreement existed between BAA and West Sussex County Council preventing the building of a second runway before 2019. Nevertheless, consultations were launched in 2002 by the Department for Transport, at which proposals for additional facilities and runways were considered. It was agreed that there would be no further expansion at Gatwick unless it became impossible to meet growth targets at London Heathrow Airport within existing pollution limits.^[184]