About
Crawley Museum tells the story of a place that has been comprehensively remade twice over. The museum occupies The Tree at 103 High Street, a timber-framed building of the early fifteenth century, rebuilt in the mid sixteenth, which was the original manor house of Crawley and takes its name from an ancient elm that stood outside it for centuries — one of the few surviving fragments of the medieval and Tudor market town that existed long before the New Town was designated. The museum moved into the restored building in 2018, and the building is itself the largest object in the collection.
Crawley's older history is that of a small Sussex market town on the London to Brighton road, chartered for a market in the thirteenth century, sustained by the coaching trade and by the Wealden iron industry in the surrounding forest. The George Inn and the run of timber-framed frontages along the High Street are the visible remains of that period, and the museum's earlier displays cover the market, the ironworking hinterland, agriculture, local trades and the extraordinary volume of coach traffic that passed through before the railway arrived in 1841.
The second transformation is the one for which Crawley is best known. Designated in 1947 under the New Towns Act, Crawley was among the first generation of post-war British new towns, planned as a self-contained settlement of neighbourhoods each with its own centre, school and shops. The museum's new town collections cover the planning process, the construction, the arrival of tens of thousands of people from London, the industrial estate that gave the town its employment base, and the growth of Gatwick Airport on its northern edge from a modest aerodrome into one of Europe's busiest airports. Oral history, photographs, plans and domestic objects record what it was actually like to be among the first families allocated a new house in a half-built neighbourhood.
Run by Crawley Museum Society with support from the borough council, the museum is volunteer-staffed, free to enter, and open Thursday to Saturday. It hosts a changing programme of temporary exhibitions alongside the permanent displays and runs regular events in the building and its garden.
Categories:
Plan Your Visit
⏱️ Recommended Visit Duration
💡 Visitor Tips
- The museum opens Thursday to Saturday only, 10.30am to 4pm — check the website before travelling, as extra openings happen for events.
- Crawley railway station is a seven-minute walk, making this an easy museum to reach without a car from London or Brighton.
- Admission is free; donations help maintain a listed timber-framed building as well as the collections.
- Look at the building itself as carefully as the displays — the exposed frame shows the original open hall and the later insertion of floors and a chimney.
- The upper floor is reached by stairs; contact the museum in advance if you need to discuss access.
- The new town oral history recordings are the standout part of the collection — allow time to listen rather than only reading labels.
- Combine the visit with a walk along the surviving historic High Street, including the George Inn and its gallows sign.
- Check the events programme; the museum makes regular use of its garden and the building for talks and community events.
Highlights
The Tree: Crawley's Medieval Manor House
The museum's home is its largest exhibit.
The Tree at 103 High Street was built in the early fifteenth century and substantially rebuilt in the mid sixteenth, and it was the original manor house of Crawley; its name commemorates an ancient elm that stood outside for hundreds of years and was one of the town's landmarks. It survived the wholesale redevelopment of Crawley as a new town and was restored for museum use, opening in 2018.
Visitors can read the building's history directly from the exposed timber frame — the open hall, the later insertion of a floor and chimney, and the alterations that turned a medieval house into shops and offices before it became a museum.
Designating a New Town, 1947
Crawley was designated under the New Towns Act in 1947, among the first generation of British new towns created to relieve London's overcrowding and bomb-damaged housing. The museum sets out how the designation worked in practice: the Development Corporation's powers, the master plan of self-contained neighbourhoods each with its own centre, primary school and shops, and the compulsory acquisition of farmland from people who had not asked to be at the centre of national housing policy.
Plans, models, official publications and press coverage document a scheme that was genuinely experimental at the time.
Arriving: The First New Town Families
Between the late 1940s and the 1960s tens of thousands of people moved to Crawley from London, most allocated a house tied to a job in the new industrial estate. Oral history recordings, photographs and domestic objects capture what that actually felt like — the shock of mud and unmade roads, the novelty of an indoor bathroom and a garden, the distance from extended family, and the intense sociability that developed among neighbours who had all arrived at the same time as strangers.
This is the strongest and most personal part of the museum's twentieth-century collecting.
The Market Town and the Coaching Road
Long before the New Town, Crawley was a small market settlement on the main road from London to Brighton, and the coaching trade was for a period its principal business. The George Inn, with its gallows sign spanning the High Street, was one of a number of inns serving a traffic that at its height ran to dozens of coaches a day.
The museum's displays cover the market charter, the road, the inns and the abrupt collapse of the coaching economy after the railway opened in 1841 — a reversal that left Crawley a quiet country town for the next century.
Collections
Crawley Museum's collections cover the town and the surrounding West Sussex parishes from the medieval period to the present, held in and interpreted alongside The Tree, a timber-framed manor house of the early fifteenth century, rebuilt in the mid sixteenth, that is itself the museum's principal artefact.
Earlier material covers the medieval market charter, the Wealden iron industry of the surrounding forest, agriculture, local trades and the London to Brighton coaching road with its inns. The twentieth-century collections are dominated by Crawley's designation as a new town in 1947 and include development corporation plans and publications, construction photographs, domestic objects from the first new houses, and a substantial oral history archive of residents who moved from London.
Further material documents the growth of Gatwick Airport and the individual neighbourhoods of the planned town.
The Tree and the Old Town
The timber-framed building itself, the medieval market, Wealden iron and the coaching trade on the Brighton road.
Crawley New Town
The 1947 designation, the development corporation's plan, construction, and the arrival of new town families.
Working Crawley
The industrial estate, Gatwick Airport and the employment base that sustained the planned town.
Themes
Time Periods
Current Exhibitions
No current exhibitions. Please check the museum website for updates.