Crawley, W Sussex - St. John's Church 1907 - library repro postcard, 1993

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^{Text from the free encyclopedia WIKIPEDIA may appear below to give a little background information (internal links may not  work) :}

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^{Crawley () is a town and borough in West Sussex, England. It is 28 miles (45 km) south of Charing Cross (London), 18 miles (29 km) north of Brighton and Hove, and 32 miles (51 km) north-east of the county town of Chichester. Crawley covers an area of 17.36 square miles (44.96 km2) and had a population of 106,597 at the time of the 2011 Census.}

^{The area has been inhabited since the Stone Age,[2] and was a centre of ironworking in Roman times. Crawley developed slowly as a market town from the 13th century, serving the surrounding villages in the Weald. Its location on the main road from London to Brighton brought passing trade, which encouraged the development of coaching inns. A rail link to London opened in 1841.}

^{Gatwick Airport, nowadays one of Britain's busiest international airports, opened on the edge of the town in the 1940s, encouraging commercial and industrial growth. After the Second World War, the British Government planned to move large numbers of people and jobs out of London and into new towns around South East England. The New Towns Act 1946 designated Crawley as the site of one of these.[3] A master plan was developed for the establishment of new residential, commercial, industrial and civic areas, and rapid development greatly increased the size and population of the town over a few decades.}

^{The town contains 13 residential neighbourhoods radiating out from the core of the old market town, and separated by main roads and railway lines. The nearby communities of Ifield, Pound Hill and Three Bridges were absorbed into the new town at various stages in its development. In 2009, expansion was being planned in the west and north-west of the town, in cooperation with Horsham District Council.[4] Economically, the town has developed into the main centre of industry and employment between London and the south coast. Its large industrial area supports manufacturing and service companies, many of them connected with the airport. The commercial and retail sectors continue to expand.[3]}

^{St John the Baptist's Church is an Anglican church in Crawley, a town and borough in West Sussex, England. It is the parish church of Crawley, and is the oldest building in the town centre, dating from the 13th century[1][2]—although many alterations have been made since, and only one wall remains of the ancient building.[2]}

^{In the Norman era, Slaugham and Cuckfield were the most important places in the north of the county of Sussex.[2] When Crawley first started to develop as a village in the 13th century, it was in the parish of Slaugham[1] in the Hundred of Buttinghill (hundreds were ancient divisions of land covering several parishes).[3] As the new village was distant from the parish church at Slaugham (St Mary's), several miles south, a stone church was built as a chapel of ease.[2] It is known to have existed before 1267, when it was passed on in a will,[4] and it was still the daughter church of Slaugham in 1291; but by the early 15th century it was referred to as a "free" church and a "permanent chantry".[2] The parish of Crawley was therefore established separate from Slaugham at some point, probably by the end of the 14th century,[5] and St John the Baptist's was regarded as its parish church by the time chantries were abolished in the 1540s.[6] Crawley was a small, very narrow, split parish, and did not cover the whole of the village of Crawley: the boundary between it and the parish of Ifield—and between the Hundred of Buttinghill and the Hundred of Burbeach, in which Ifield lay—ran up the middle of the High Street.[7][8] The detached part of Crawley parish consisted of heavily forested land and one farm near Pease Pottage.[8][8] The total area of the parish was less than 800 acres (300 ha); Ifield parish was six times larger, in contrast.[7]}

^{The first additions to the structure came in the 15th century, when a tall tower was added at the western end, the windows in the nave were enlarged and a rood screen was installed between the chancel and the nave.[9] The nave roof was also rebuilt at this time, and the earliest surviving memorial carvings and stones in the church are also 15th-century.[5][10]}

^{By the 16th century, Crawley's development into a thriving market village meant that its parish was much more important than that of Slaugham, and the connection between their two churches was legally severed.[11] At least 150 people regularly attended the church,[12] but its income was modest and priests frequently moved on to richer parishes.[13] The building fell into disrepair in the 17th and 18th centuries, although the four cracked bells in the tower were replaced by London bell-founder Thomas Lester in 1742. Lester cast dozens of bells for Sussex churches, and reused the metal from the old bells in his work at Crawley.[14]}

^{Major changes took place in the 19th century. The tower partially rebuilt and heightened by 1814, although the original stone was reused.[6][10][15] Some more work took place in 1845,[6] but the greatest changes happened in 1879 and 1880. A new north aisle was added, a porch was built on the north side, the chancel was completely rebuilt and reordered, an organ chamber was built, and the bells were replaced by a new ring of eight bells, hung for change ringing, cast by Gillett, Bland & Company of Croydon.[6][10][15][16] Nikolaus Pevsner has criticised the resulting appearance of the church, calling it "dully Victorian" and noting that its best feature is the unrestored 15th-century nave roof.[15]}

^{The church's location just east of the High Street[15] meant that it was very close to the boundary of Ifield parish. People who lived on or around the west side of the High Street would often attend St John the Baptist's although their parish church was St Margaret's. One such worshipper was Mark Lemon, founding editor of the satirical magazine Punch. Having adopted Crawley as his home town, he lived at Vine Cottage on the west side of the High Street, and regularly attended St John the Baptist's instead of St Margaret's.[17] However, his substantial girth caused him problems: he had to sit in the gallery because there were no pews large enough to accommodate him in the nave.[18]}

^{The church, graveyard and church walk are reportedly haunted a number of paranormal sightings have happened over the years. The churchyard contains the war graves of two soldiers of World War I and an airman of World War II.[19]}