Leonard ‘Len’ Hurst, was born in Kent, on the 28th December 1871. As a brick maker by trade, Len didn’t make much money and quickly moved into running professionally, winning his first race at the age of 15. He retired from running in 1908 at the age of 37, using…
Imagine a solid sphere of iron hurtling towards you at 250 mph! Welcome to historical warfare! Among the exhibits at Crawley Museum is what appears to be an English civil war cannonball. It’s a 3.1 lb hunk of metal, which is now pitted and rusted, held together by wire, but…
Over the past few years Crawley Museum have been asked to host work experience students from schools and colleges in the surrounding area. This year we hosted 4 students over June and July. Each student came in for between 3 and 5 days depending on their school requirement and got…
The chairs which are now on display in the museum. No! These cane backed arm chairs painted in light blue with some beautiful painted flowers have a lovely local story behind them. They were owned by Alice and Frank Hyder of Three Bridges. Alice was born on the 10 May…
Marion Cecilia Buckett was born on the 2nd April 1892 in Brompton Kent. She married Reginald Milton Crowe in Horsham in 1925 and they lived and worked at 57 High Street, Crawley. From 1924 – 1968 Reginald is registered as being a Print seller and Picture Frame Maker. Involved in…
Ice Cream maker We can now announce that the mystery object we had on our stall at Ifield May Fayre was an… Ice Cream Maker. The machine probably from the late 19th to early 20th century was made by a Swedish company Husqvarna. The company was established in 1689 as…
Volunteering at Crawley Museum has given me the opportunity to peek behind the curtain of how a museum functions and what work goes into organising and storing exhibitions. I had a very romantic idea of how museums looked behind locked doors, and still do to some extent. Thanks to modern…
In the early part of the 20th century it was common for cycle shops to also sell gramophones and records. Kirkman’s was in Crawley Square from the 1930s until the 1950s. They then moved to 40 The Broadway. The Square was the buildings that stood in the middle of the…
We love this advert! We found it in a press cutting from February 1966. As it was just a cutting we unfortunately don’t know which newspaper it was from. The text reads “Saturday Feb 19th, 2-6pm. The Young Socialists southern regional conference. West Green Centre, Crawley. All young workers, students…
This hand carved coat of arms was donated by the Borough Council to Crawley Museum in 1992. This version of the coat of arms was officially granted on February 8th 1957 and thus the carving dates back to the late 1950s. The cross represents the position of the town geographically…
