In these strange and unprecedented times, local author Renny Richardson is offering a free of charge electronic version of his first book via Crawley Museum. All the Bright Company of Heaven, first published in 2011, and long out of print tells the story of another dark time in Crawley’s history…
(Written by Graham Crozier, 2019) Painting of the Rent Strike from Crawley Museum’s collection. Painted by J.E. Fuller, 1955, Crawley. 90cm x 78cm. The Rent Strike of October 1955 has all but disappeared from the awareness of people living in Crawley today. However, it can be seen as representing an…
Here’s another object from our stores. If you were writing a label for it what would you put on it? It doesn’t have to be serious! Comments from our followers on social media included: “Iron. Something my Mum used to spit on before she started ironing.” “Iron, often put in…
At Crawley Museum we love crows. Why? Because the word ‘Crawley’ comes from the Saxon word for ‘Crows Wood’. When we’re open people love to colour in Crows in our Learning Space. While we’re closed for a while, why not colour one in at home? Just click the link below:…
The Old Toll House in Northgate was near the entrance to what is now Ifield Drive, at the junction with the High Street. As well as a photograph of it, we’ve recently been donated a watercolor painting, presumably based on the photo. There is no artist’s name on the painting.…
As part of our Crawley’s Collections Revealed project (funded by Arts Council England), we’re meant to be running face to face sessions with people, looking at objects and writing labels. Obviously we can’t do the face to face bit right now, but we can still show you objects and ask…
In 2019 Crawley Museum was awarded a grant from Arts Council England for a new project – Crawley’s Collections Revealed.This 18 month project runs from November 2019 until April 2021.It has been doing two main things: 1 Going through our collections to identify things that are not relevant to the…
The move to the new museum buildings at The Tree is an exciting time for anyone interested in local history, and offers a good opportunity for people to get involved in researching and talking about the development of Crawley. This is especially so as it coincides with the 70th anniversary…
West Green C of E School 1824-1955 The school was started for the poor of Crawley and Ifield for eighty boys and forty girls by Sarah Robinson but it very soon had more children as time went on. My mother attended this school from 1905 until leaving in 1912 along…
I’m a Londoner. I lived in Horley for 25 years and moved to Crawley 10 years ago, but my roots are still in London therefore it was with apprehension that I turned up for my first event as a volunteer for Crawley museum. ‘Don’t worry’ said Andrea, ‘the people who…
