West Green is one of the 14 residential neighbourhoods in
Crawley
Crawley () is a large town and borough in West Sussex, England. It is south of London, north of Brighton and Hove, and north-east of the county town of Chichester. Crawley covers an area of and had a population of 106,597 at the time of th ...
, a town and
borough
A borough is an administrative division in various English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely.
History
In the Middle Ag ...
in
West Sussex
West Sussex is a county in South East England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the shire districts of Adur, Arun, Chichester, Horsham, and Mid Sussex, and the boroughs of Crawley and Worthing. Covering an ar ...
, England. Crawley was planned and laid out as a
New Town
New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created.
New or NEW may refer to:
Music
* New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz
Albums and EPs
* ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013
* ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...
after the Second World War, based on the principle of self-contained neighbourhoods surrounding a town centre of civic and commercial buildings. West Green was the first neighbourhood to be developed, and is one of the smallest and closest to the town centre.
Location within Crawley
West Green is a roughly triangular area of , bounded by the
Arun Valley railway line to the south, the
A23 (Crawley Avenue) to the west and north, and the High Street to the east. The latter formed part of the main London to Brighton road until it was
bypassed in the 1930s.
Northgate and the town centre lie to the east,
Southgate
Southgate or South Gate may refer to:
Places Australia
*Southgate, Sylvania
*Southgate Arts and Leisure Precinct, an area within Southbank, Victoria
Canada
*Southgate, Ontario, a township in Grey County
* Southgate, Middlesex County, Ontario
Ed ...
is to the south,
Ifield is to the west and
Langley Green shares a border to the north.
When the New Town was planned, each neighbourhood was allocated a colour, which appears on street name signs together with the neighbourhood's name. West Green's colour is dark blue.
History
A small settlement developed in the
Anglo-Saxon
The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...
era around a crossroads where a northeast–southwest trackway connecting the main Saxon-era estates and farms of the
Weald
The Weald () is an area of South East England between the parallel chalk escarpments of the North and the South Downs. It crosses the counties of Hampshire, Surrey, Sussex and Kent. It has three separate parts: the sandstone "High Weald" in the ...
crossed an east–west route between
Worth and Ifield. After the
Norman Conquest
The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Conque ...
, the pattern of land use and travel changed, and a new north–south route between London and the south coast developed slightly to the east.
Crawley, originally a small village itself, grew around this from the 13th century onwards.
The two settlements, apart,
grew slowly alongside each other for the next few centuries. The name "West Green" was first recorded in 1532.
In the 19th century, the increasing prosperity of Crawley—by now, a thriving market town—stimulated residential growth in West Green.
In 1841 it had only 20 houses,
but the arrival of the railway in the town in 1848 was significant: the existing development at West Green was close to Crawley railway station, and land was available for further building. This took place haphazardly and without any planning: local builders erected individual houses or streets speculatively and in a mixture of styles.
The variety of villas, semi-detached houses and terraces in Leopold, Spencers, Victoria, Albany and Princess Roads—built in the 1880s just north of the railway line—
typify this.
In the same decade a small chapel was built—the forerunner of St Peter's Church,
an
Anglican
Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...
church built on a triangle of land near the ancient crossroads in 1893.
The east–west track had become the main Ifield Road, and Horsham Rural District Council—responsible for the land in the early 20th century—built some
council housing
Public housing in the United Kingdom, also known as council estates, council housing, or social housing, provided the majority of rented accommodation until 2011 when the number of households in private rental housing surpassed the number in so ...
along the road in the
interwar period
In the history of the 20th century, the interwar period lasted from 11 November 1918 to 1 September 1939 (20 years, 9 months, 21 days), the end of the World War I, First World War to the beginning of the World War II, Second World War. The in ...
. Overall, of approximately 900 houses built in Crawley during that time, more than 100 were built in West Green.
John George Haigh
John George Haigh (; 24 July 1909 – 10 August 1949), commonly known as the Acid Bath Murderer, was an English serial killer convicted for the murder of six people, although he claimed to have killed nine. Haigh battered to death or shot his ...
, who moved to Crawley from London in 1943, carried out six murders—known as the "Acid Bath Murders"—at a workshop in Leopold Road between 1944 and 1949. He was
hanged
Hanging is the suspension of a person by a noose or ligature around the neck.Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. Hanging as method of execution is unknown, as method of suicide from 1325. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' states that hanging in ...
for his crimes in August of that year. The case brought notoriety to the town and aroused considerable interest among local people.
New Town era
![Crawley Housing - Smalls Mead, West Green](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1a/Crawley_Housing_-_Smalls_Mead%2C_West_Green.jpg)
Crawley was designated as a New Town in January 1947 after the
New Towns Act 1946 identified it as a suitable site for one.
Crawley Development Corporation was formed, led by the architect
Thomas Bennett, and
planner
Planner may refer to:
* A personal organizer (book) for planning
* Microsoft Planner
* Planner programming language
* Planner (PIM for Emacs)
* Urban planner
* Route planner
* Meeting and convention planner
* Japanese term for video game de ...
Anthony Minoprio
Sir Charles Anthony Minoprio (1900–1988) was a British architect and town planner. Much of his early work was in partnership with Hugh Spencely (1900–1983), a friend since they attended Harrow School together. Later he worked more as a town ...
provided a master plan for the town's development.
He proposed a double ring of nine neighbourhoods surrounding an extended town centre; West Green was to be one of the inner ring of four, and the first to be built.
By 1949, when building work started, West Green's population was about 2,000—mainly concentrated in the area between Ifield Road and the railway line—and the Development Corporation had to consider how to fit new development around this.
By the end of the 1948–1949
financial year
A fiscal year (or financial year, or sometimes budget year) is used in government accounting, which varies between countries, and for budget purposes. It is also used for financial reporting by businesses and other organizations. Laws in many j ...
, the Development Corporation had bought of land in West Green, and was negotiating the acquisition, mostly by
compulsory purchase order, of another .
At that stage, were intended to be developed immediately. Most of the land was designated for housing, the neighbourhood centre (parade of shops, pub and community centre) and a new school, but about were reserved for open space and
allotment
Allotment may refer to:
* Allotment (Dawes Act), an area of land held by the US Government for the benefit of an individual Native American, under the Dawes Act of 1887
* Allotment (finance), a method by which a company allocates over-subscribed s ...
s. Minoprio planned a wide variety of housing types, from high-density low-rise blocks of flats near the town centre to large
detached houses.
The New Town's first set of houses were built in West Green during this period. In 1947, the Development Corporation granted the design contract for 34 houses to architectural practice Godman & Kay.
A
Hove
Hove is a seaside resort and one of the two main parts of the city of Brighton and Hove, along with Brighton in East Sussex, England. Originally a "small but ancient fishing village" surrounded by open farmland, it grew rapidly in the 19th cen ...
-based firm, H.J. Paris Ltd, won the £7,397 (£ today) contract for the road construction and site preparation in 1948. The
Horsham
Horsham is a market town on the upper reaches of the River Arun on the fringe of the Weald in West Sussex, England. The town is south south-west of London, north-west of Brighton and north-east of the county town of Chichester. Nearby to ...
-based building firm Hoad & Taylor built the houses at a cost of £45,220 (£ today), and residents moved in during the summer of 1949.
The road ran northeastwards from the old Ifield Road and was named Smalls Mead; it lay near the path of one section of the ancient trackway, which had historically been called Smalls Lane.
By 1952, 622 houses had been built or started, and the neighbourhood was effectively complete in 1954.
By that time, the neighbourhood centre—with shops, post office, community centre and public house—had been established at the junction of Ewhurst Road and West Green Drive.
The southeastern corner of the neighbourhood was redeveloped early in the 21st century as part of the Borough Council's efforts to improve the town centre. Robinson Road, the site of Crawley's original hospital, post office and school,
was demolished, and Spencers Road was severed. A large mixed-use development, anchored by an
Asda superstore, was completed on the site in September 2003.
Around the same time at the other end of the High Street, and again just within the boundary of West Green, the Crawley Leisure Park was built on the site of the Sun Inn. This was an old house at the northern end of Crawley village, which was converted into an inn in the 1870s.
Demography
![Crawley Neighbourhoods (West Green)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/Crawley_Neighbourhoods_%28West_Green%29.png)
The neighbourhood is coterminous with the administrative
ward of the same name, which is one of the fifteen wards in Crawley. These divisions are used for collecting
census
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses incl ...
and other statistical and demographic data. It had a population of 4,404 at the
2001 United Kingdom Census
A nationwide census, known as Census 2001, was conducted in the United Kingdom on Sunday, 29 April 2001. This was the 20th UK census and recorded a resident population of 58,789,194.
The 2001 UK census was organised by the Office for National ...
. Its population density was therefore —much higher than the figure of for Crawley overall.
There were 2,005 households, of which 1,125 (56%) were owned by the occupier, 668 (33%) were
rented from Crawley Borough Council or another public-sector landlord, 143 (7%) were rented privately and 69 (3%) were occupied rent-free.
The rate of owner-occupancy is much lower than in Crawley as a whole, and a much higher proportion of housing is rented from the council.
According to the census, 91.2% of residents are White, 6.2% are Asian or Asian-British, 1% are Black or Black-British, 0.9% are mixed-race and 0.7% are from another ethnic background. The proportion of white people is slightly higher, and that of Asian people slightly lower, than in Crawley overall; other proportions are comparable to Crawley as a whole.
The age distribution of West Green's population is different from that of Crawley as a whole: as at the 2001 census, 866 (19.7% of residents) were under 18 years old, 2,558 (58.1%) were between 18 and 64 years old, and 980 (22.3%) were 65 years old and over. The corresponding figures for Crawley were 23,748 (23.8%), 61,338 (61.5%) and 14,658 (14.7%), indicating that West Green has an older age profile.
Services
Crawley Hospital
Crawley Hospital is a National Health Service hospital in Crawley, a town and borough in West Sussex, England. Since 2006 it has been part of the Sussex Community NHS Trust, which has overall management responsibility. Surrey and Sussex Healthc ...
was built on a site in West Green Drive between 1959 and 1962. It was extended in the late 1960s and in 1981.
It replaced a 1930s building which had in turn succeeded a small
cottage hospital at the south end of Crawley High Street.
Since the 1990s many services have been moved to East Surrey Hospital in
Redhill, and Crawley Hospital now has "sub-acute" status and has 143 beds.
Crawley's
ambulance station
An ambulance station is a structure or other area set aside for storage of ambulance vehicles and their medical equipment, as well as working and living space for their staff.
Ambulance stations have facilities for maintaining ambulance vehicles ...
was moved to playing fields off Ifield Avenue by the early 1980s from its former town-centre location.
Crawley fire station, headquarters of the Crawley and Mid Sussex District Team of West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service, is on the same road.
The station has five vehicle bays with three standard water tenders, a heavy rescue tender and a four-wheel drive appliance. It received 1,390 calls in the 2009–10 reporting year.
The town's main cemetery, which existed before the New town was planned, is in the far southwest corner of West Green, between the bypass and the railway line.
Public buildings
![Crawley Baptist Church, West Green, Crawley](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1f/Crawley_Baptist_Church%2C_West_Green%2C_Crawley.JPG)
Until the early 20th century, West Green was in the Parish of Ifield. Its
Anglican
Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...
parish church
A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in community activities, ...
,
St Margaret's, was distant from the community; so in 1880 a
chapel of ease
A chapel of ease (or chapel-of-ease) is a church architecture, church building other than the parish church, built within the bounds of a parish for the attendance of those who cannot reach the parish church conveniently.
Often a chapel of ea ...
, St Mary Magdalene's, was built.
This was replaced by a larger church, St Peter's, in 1892. This was given its own parish in 1901: the Parish of West Crawley was created from territory moved from Ifield.
St Peter's Church was designed by W. Hilton Nash
and built by local construction firm owner Richard Cook.
The
sandstone
Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks.
Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...
building, with a
chancel
In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse.
Ove ...
, single-aisled
nave
The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...
,
vestry
A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government for a parish in England, Wales and some English colonies which originally met in the vestry or sacristy of the parish church, and consequently became known colloquiall ...
and bell-turret,
holds 439 people and cost £2,800 (£ as of 2009) to build.
It was for many years a part of the Parish of Crawley under
St John the Baptist's Church.
On 8 September 2017 St Peter's became the parish church of the newly created Parish of West Green St Peter.
Crawley Baptist Church, established in 1883, moved to Crabtree Road in West Green in 1954. The building was demolished in 2002 and replaced with a new structure on the same site.
Crawley's
Hindu
Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism.Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...
community established a
mandir
A Hindu temple, or ''mandir'' or ''koil'' in Indian languages, is a house, seat and body of divinity for Hindus. It is a structure designed to bring human beings and gods together through worship, sacrifice, and devotion.; Quote: "The Hind ...
(temple) on Spencers Road in about 1970;
and the
Sikh
Sikhs ( or ; pa, ਸਿੱਖ, ' ) are people who adhere to Sikhism, Sikhism (Sikhi), a Monotheism, monotheistic religion that originated in the late 15th century in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, based on the revelation of Gu ...
community have a
gurdwara
A gurdwara (sometimes written as gurudwara) (Gurmukhi: ਗੁਰਦੁਆਰਾ ''guradu'ārā'', meaning "Door to the Guru") is a place of assembly and worship for Sikhs. Sikhs also refer to gurdwaras as ''Gurdwara Sahib''. People from all faiths ...
on the same street, which in 2009 was due to be demolished and replaced with a larger building.
No work has taken place as of .
A
Church of England school
A Christian school is a school run on Christian principles or by a Christian organization.
The nature of Christian schools varies enormously from country to country, according to the religious, educational, and political cultures. In some count ...
was opened on West Green Drive in the 1930s. In 1951, the
Local Education Authority
Local education authorities (LEAs) were local councils in England that are responsible for education within their jurisdiction. The term was used to identify which council (district or county) is locally responsible for education in a system wit ...
set up a temporary school on the site in response to the early growth of the New Town, and permanent
infant
An infant or baby is the very young offspring of human beings. ''Infant'' (from the Latin word ''infans'', meaning 'unable to speak' or 'speechless') is a formal or specialised synonym for the common term ''baby''. The terms may also be used to ...
and
junior school divisions were opened in 1952 and 1953 respectively.
Under the name of
West Green Primary School, the school now has seven classes of pupils between the ages of 4 and 11.
The master plan proposed that a neighbourhood centre, consisting of community centre, public house, school, church and shopping parade, should be an integral part of each neighbourhood. The Development Corporation provided a temporary community centre building, and West Sussex County Council extended the school building in 1954 to provide a permanent facility. This was augmented by a youth centre in 1960.
A pub, the Apple Tree, was built in the mid-1950s, and the
Development Corporation
Development corporations or development firms are organizations established by governments in several countries for the purpose of urban development. They often are responsible for the development of new suburban areas or the redevelopment of exi ...
provided a parade of seven shops: the smallest parade in any of Crawley's neighbourhoods, reflecting its proximity to the town centre.
Listed buildings
![44-48 High Street, Crawley (IoE Code 363354)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/44-48_High_Street%2C_Crawley_%28IoE_Code_363354%29.jpg)
The boundary between the West Green and Northgate neighbourhoods follows the ancient parish boundary between the Parishes of Ifield and Crawley. This ran up the middle of the High Street, so all buildings on its west side are within West Green.
There are five
listed building
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
s in the neighbourhood.
The
George Hotel, listed at Grade II*, is an early 16th-century
coaching inn
The coaching inn (also coaching house or staging inn) was a vital part of Europe's inland transport infrastructure until the development of the railway, providing a resting point ( layover) for people and horses. The inn served the needs of tra ...
which expanded over the next two centuries to take over surrounding buildings. Crawley's location midway between London and Brighton on the direct route between them, which was
turnpiked in 1770, contributed to its growth, as it became the natural stopping place for traffic of all types.
Extensive changes in the next two centuries included various extensions and the building of an annexe (since demolished) in the middle of the High Street.
The other four listed buildings have a Grade II designation. The building now designated as 34 and 36 High Street is a two-storey, red-brick building dating from the late 18th century, with six
sash window
A sash window or hung sash window is made of one or more movable panels, or "sashes". The individual sashes are traditionally paned window (architecture), paned windows, but can now contain an individual sheet (or sheets, in the case of double gla ...
s, a pair of original brick chimneys and a tiled roof. The ground floor has been converted into two retail units.
Further north, 44–48 High Street, on the corner of Ifield Road, is a group of three shop units housed in a building originally constructed as a four-
bay
A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a Gulf (geography), gulf, sea, sound (geography), sound, or bight (geogra ...
timber-framed
Timber framing (german: Holzfachwerk) and "post-and-beam" construction are traditional methods of building with heavy timbers, creating structures using squared-off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden ...
house in about 1600. The exterior is now
stucco
Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and a ...
ed, and the building was redesigned in the 18th and 19th centuries, when it was converted into shops. There are four equally spaced 19th-century sash windows on the side facing the High Street. The north face, fronting Ifield Road, has a
jettied
Jettying (jetty, jutty, from Old French ''getee, jette'') is a building technique used in medieval timber-frame buildings in which an upper floor projects beyond the dimensions of the floor below. This has the advantage of increasing the availa ...
overhang, a traditional feature of timber-framed buildings in the area; the main (east) side was originally jettied as well but has since been built up. The oldest visible parts of the building are the southernmost
bay
A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a Gulf (geography), gulf, sea, sound (geography), sound, or bight (geogra ...
, where there is 17th-century brickwork and timber, and the chimney from the same period. Many early 18th-century fittings remain inside.
On Ifield Road itself, a now-derelict house at No. 10 is a mid-17th-century timber-framed house with exterior tile-hanging and 19th-century brickwork;
and No. 60 and 62 were a pair of cottages created in the 19th century from a 16th-century timber-framed farmhouse, which is now used as one building again. Its exterior is partly of brick and partly tile-hung, the roof is tiled, and substantial wooden beams and trusses are visible inside.
Transport
Metrobus, which operates all local bus services in Crawley, serves Crawley Hospital and other stops in West Green on routes 1 and 2.
There is also a free service from Crawley bus station to the
Asda superstore.
Crawley railway station
Crawley railway station is a railway station serving the town of Crawley in West Sussex, England. It is down the line from , measured via Redhill. It is operated by Southern. The station is the last stop on the Arun Valley Line before it joins ...
is near the southeastern corner of the neighbourhood, and
Ifield railway station
Ifield railway station (pronounced 'Eye-field') serves the neighbourhoods of Ifield and Gossops Green in the West Sussex town of Crawley, England. It is on the Arun Valley Line, down the line from , measured via Redhill. Train services are p ...
is close to the west side.
Levels of vehicle ownership, as measured by the 2001 census, are lower than in Crawley as a whole. At the census date, the mean number of vehicles per household was 0.97 (the overall Crawley figure was 1.21), and 32.4% of households had no transport of their own, compared to 20.4% in Crawley overall.
References
Notes
Bibliography
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{{Crawley
Neighbourhoods in Crawley