The toponymy of Crawley: Why is it called that?
By Ian Mulcahy
Created 21 October 2023
An investigation into the place names in and around Crawley.
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Have you ever wondered why your neighbourhood, your town, your county or your region are so named? This study examines the origins of the names of those places, as well as those of some of the pre-new town farms. Illustrated with 60 photos. Please click the images to view the full size versions.
CONTENTS
Some of Crawley’s etymology (‘the origin of a word and the historical development of its meaning’) is Saxon in origin, including the name of the town itself. In the Anglo Saxon language a ‘leah’ was originally used to describe a wood, but later came to mean a clearing in the wood. In the wilds of North Sussex abutting the Surrey border there was a place where crows; crawes in old English, gathered and this became known as Crawe Leah. Was this a wood where crows gathered or was it a clearing in the wood? We’ll never know for certain, but as the name referred to a settlement it is likely that the settlement was in a clearing which dates the naming of the settlement to the later Saxon period. The place was named in a time when written records were sparse and information was passed by word of mouth and as the pronunciation changed with the passing of the years, by the time the clearing with crows started to be documented as a place we see Croweley (1262), Crauele (1278) & Crawle (1291, 1327 & 1444) before the modern spelling of Crawley started to appear by around 1500.
THE WIDER AREA AND NEIGHBOURING TOWNS
Crawley is in the county of Sussex whose name derives from the Saxon ‘Sūþsēaxe’, or ‘SuthSax’; the Kingdom of the South Saxons (see also Essex to the east, Wessex to the west and Middlesex in the middle. There were no north Saxons as the Angles got there first and called it Mercia!). Surrey was also a Saxon county and the name derives from ‘Suthrige’ which means ‘southern region’. This is commonly believed to relate to the southern region of the middle Saxons. Consideration should also be given to the possibility of ‘Suth Ea’, ea being ‘river’ (Thames) so ‘south of the river’. You won’t get a black cab to go there though!
Spreading across Sussex, as well as Kent, Surrey & Hampshire, is The Weald, derived from the Saxon ‘wald’, meaning ‘forest’. During the Saxon era the area was known as Andredes Wald, or the forest of Andred. Anderitum was the Roman name for modern day Pevensey so essentially it was the ‘The Forest of Pevensey’. The Weald is the area enclosed by the North and South Downs, downs deriving from the old English word for hill; ‘dun’.
To the north of Crawley is Horley; the wood belonging to a man named Horne and between the two towns is Gatwick Airport, built on the site of a goat farm (wick). To the east is Crawley Down (Crawledun – Crawley Hill) and Copthorne; the copped (cut) thorn trees. Beyond is the grenestede, or green place, prefixed with East by the late 13th century to distinguish it from West Grinstead some 20 miles to the south west. To the south is, the once important, Slaugham – an enclosed settlement (ham) by the sloe trees and to the south west is the settlement where horses were kept and sold from; Horsham. To the west is a rough enclosure (a ‘ruh spaer’; Rusper) and to the north-west is Charlwood - ‘The Wood of the Ceorls’ (a freeman with the right to bear arms).
THE PRE-NEW TOWN PARISHES & VILLAGES
From the 16th century, when Crawley became a parish in its own right rather than a chapelry of Slaugham, until the mid-fifties, the Parish of Crawley was a thin strip of land some 2,000 metres long (from modern day Haslett Avenue in the south to just beyond Fleming Way in the North) and 470 metres wide (at its widest point). The parish boundary with Ifield followed the centre of the High Street and London Road and at its southern end, in the Town Centre, the Parish boundary with Worth was the Broadway meaning the parish was a mere 150 metres wide here. Much of the boundary with Worth can still be traced in a line of trees, visible on satellite imagery, which runs from behind the Woodall Duckhams building, through Northgate and along Green Lane. Until the new town started to develop, most of what we now know as Crawley was either in the parishes of Worth, which included the village of Three Bridges, or Ifield.
Worth pre-dates ‘leah’ as the Saxon word for a
clearing and, with no suffix or prefix (such as Petworth, Chesworth,
Fittleworth, Worthing etc.), is simply THE clearing, which marks it as
well known or, perhaps, the first clearing in the area. In the Domesday book, Worth is written
as ‘Orðe’ (pronounced with an initial 'w' as in 'one', and including the
Saxon letter 'ð' which pronounced as a soft 'th’. As a further example
Petworth is listed in Domesday as ‘Peteorde’
Ifield The name Ifield (Ifelt, Yfeld) dates from the very early Saxon period when the word field simply meant a clearing or settlement so Ifield means the clearing or settlement in the yew trees. The use of field in a place name tells us that it is an ancient settlement which probably already existed when the Saxons arrived in the mid 5th century as later Saxon language used 'ley' to convey the same meaning (see Crawley as an example).
Three Bridges is documented at least as far back as 1613 when, on 29th September, Court records document an order that the tithing men of Worth repair the Bridge called “Le Three Bridges”, so, contrary to a common perception of its origins, the name is not related to the Railway which came to Three Bridges in 1841. Very old maps show that there are three bridges crossing Gatwick Stream in the immediate vicinity of the hamlet. In modern terms these are outside Three Bridges station, where St Mary’s Drive joins Hazelwick Mill Lane and at Blackwater. However, the above mentioned court record and others, from 29 April 1617 (John Butcher is to cleanse his ditch opposite the "Parke meade" near "the three bridges" And that Edward Serridge is to cleanse his ditches between the three bridges" and the meadow called the "little Stubb Meade”) and 30 September 1617 (And that the parishioners of Worth are to repair "three bridges" lying between Worth and Crawley and to amend the adjacent highway containing 6 perches in length) imply that ‘the three bridges’ was a single structure – 3 arches on the bridge on the Worth to Crawley Road, perhaps?
NEW TOWN NEIGHBOURHOODS
Many of the names of the new town neighbourhoods were used for many years, and in some cases centuries, before the new town was conceived. Others are modern names given in tribute to local features which preceded the neighbourhoods. Ifield & Three Bridges have been covered above so here are the rest, starting with the old places and followed by the tribute names.
To the south of the town is Tilgate, another neighbourhood whose name, like that of Three Bridges, is often the subject of incorrect perception as to its origins; Tilgate isn’t a tollgate – the turnpike road didn’t arrive until 1771 and Tilgate is first documented in a tax return of 1296 when it is called Yllegate. Other documents of a similar vintage refer to Illegate. John Speeds map of Sussex from 1610 notes Tylgate, but by the time Robert Mordens version was published in 1695 the modern spelling was in use.
The ‘gate’ part of the name is prevalent locally; see Faygate, Colgate, Peas Pottage Gate (as it was once known) and Monks Gate; these were all gates, or entrances, into St. Leonards Forest. Tilgate was the entrance into what we now know as Worth Forest, but what of the Ylle or Ille? If the Saxons named it, then it could mean the evil or wicked gate and if named by the Normans then it may mean the island gate. Both seem unlikely and the probable derivation is ‘Illan Gate’, or the entrance into the forest owned by Illan.
In the south of the town, as the High Weald rises, is Broadfield. The area around Broadfield Brook was the site of a major Roman era ironworking site which would have used copious amounts of timber and required lots of ore mining, resulting in the land being stripped of its forest, so the Saxons would have found a ‘brad’ (wide, open, broad, spacious) ‘feld’ (an open space or pasture) when they arrived. Whether the name is this old or not is open to debate. It has certainly existed since 1830 when Broadfield House was built and it’s possible that the name was given then, though this would have referred to the area north of Broadfield Barton, which is marked as arable and meadow on the Slaugham tithe map of 1842 which also shows the area to the south as being called ’Pease Pottage Forest’. Broadfield is a common name in old records and documents which makes it hard to be sure that references to Broadfield relate to Crawley’s Broadfield rather than simply relating to a broad field elsewhere.
To the east of the town is Pound Hill, the earliest reference to which I can find at the West Sussex Records Office is on mortgage documentation dating to April 1804 and it also appears on a map of 1795. The hill is evidently the topographical feature and would have been a navigation point, hosting the crossroads of the Turners Hill to Crawley road and one of the old London to Brighton coaching routes. The pound probably relates to an animal pound which was located either on or at the foot of the hill. To south of Pound Hill is Maidenbower which was named after a farm demolished to enable the development of the estate, so is technically a tribute name, but I will include it at the end of the old names as it derives from the farm. There is little in the way of documentation relating to Maidenbower, though the farm was certainly so named by 1795, so we can only make assumptions. The ‘bower’ part probably derives from ‘burgh or burh’ (a dwelling) or from ‘boueer’ which means a low class freeholder or a peasant farmer. Either would fit in this case. Maiden as a word derives from the old English ‘maeden’ or ‘maegden’ and means, as it does now, an unmarried woman, so we’re probably looking at a spinsters dwelling or a spinster freeholder/farmer.
This leaves us with the tribute named neighbourhoods, starting with Furnace Green, named after Tilgate Blast Furnace which was sited roughly in the area of the cheese houses off St Leonards Drive. Forge Wood also recognises the local 16th & 17th century iron industry, being named after Tinsley Forge which was sited close to the Gatwick Stream just north of Cornwell Avenue, with the hammer pond being on the low reed filled ground to the south of this road. Black Corner, the long-standing name of the junction of Radford Road and the Balcombe Road, is descriptive of the forge slag and cinder which made up the surface of this road. At this point it also seems worth mentioning Tinsley Green. Whilst not technically a neighbourhood it exists within Crawley and has a long history, first being recorded, like Tilgate, on a tax return of the late 13th century. Here we see ‘ley’ again so the name means a woodland clearing; one that was owned by someone with the old English name of ‘Tint or Tynni’. In a field south of Radford Road, bisected by the footpath from Forge Wood to The Greyhound, are the buried remains of a medieval village and this is a Scheduled Monument.
Finally Northgate and Southgate are named after the tollgates to the north and south of the town. The north gate was where the entrance to the Origin One and Origin Two office blocks are now, just north of the Driftway, and the south gate was where Goffs Park Road joins the Brighton Road. Northgate Road and Southgate Road existed from around the 1930s, but the areas were not so named until the new town was developed in the early 50s. Finally Manor Royal, the common local name for the Industrial Estate (or ‘business district’, as it seems to be known as today) was named after Manor Farm which stood to the east of the London Road opposite Martyrs Avenue. The Royal suffix was given as the estate, or at least the main roadway (Manor Royal), was opened by the then Princess Elizabeth in 1950.
FARMS
Worth & Ifield parishes were scattered rural communities before the railway arrived in the 1840s and generally remained rural until the coming of the New Town with the exception of the areas around Crawley & Three Bridges stations. These were farming communities and many of the old farms live on, either as extant, but repurposed, buildings or in the names of roads.
The Old Martyrs is close to the junction of
Martyrs Avenue and the London Road and was once Martyrs Farm.
This name derives from an event in 1556 during the reign of Queen Mary
who restored Catholicism to England and persecuted Protestants. One of
the Protestant dissenters was Thomas Dungate who was discovered hiding
at the farmhouse and was subsequently burnt at the stake in East
Grinstead High Street, alongside Ann ‘Mother’ Tree and John Foreman, on
18 July 1556.
Hogs Hill farm in Southgate, close the New Moon pub, was a place where pigs grazed and Crabbet Farm, now better known as Crabbet Park, was formerly Crabbewick – a farm with crab-apples! In Pound Hill, close to path into Maidenbower known as ‘The Bower’ was Blackwater Farm. Like Black corner, this was a reference to the effects of the local iron industry, in this case the discolouration of Gatwick stream caused by the nearby Blackwater Forge.
On the Charlwood Road is a turning known as Prestwood Lane, leading to Lower Prestwood Farm. Upper Prestwood Farm is closer to Charlwood and the Prestwood area, which still has a small area of common land, was originally Priests Wood; woodland belonging to Rusper Priory. Close to the entrance to Prestwood Lane is Naldretts Farm; the farm with alder trees.
In Langley Green we have a Stafford Road, named after Stafford Farm which was close to the River Mole and was a ‘ford by a landing place’, while Hyde Farm, at the entrance to Ifield Golf Club and also mentioned on the tax returns of 1296, would have had around 120 acres, or a hide, of land. The name is also part of the common reference to Ifield West amongst locals – Hyde Drive. In Southgate is Goffs (Hill) Farm, now a popular pub. Goffs has been so called since at least 1795, but has been a particularly hard derivation to trace. It seems likely that the hill was named after someone called Goff or Gogh a name of Celtic origin that was prevalent during the late medieval period. An alternative possibility is its now obsolete Middle English meaning of a fool, a clown or a simpleton. Fools Hill? Close to Goffs, on the way to Horsham, was Buckswood Farm which simply refers to a wood with bucks (deer) in. Buckswood Farm was demolished when Bewbush was built in the 1970s, being replaced with Kingsley Road and Brideake Close, and shouldn’t be confused with Little Buckswood Farm, which still exists in the grounds of the Garden centre next to Cheals Roundabout. Frogshole Farm, in Maidenbower, was most likely in an area where there was a hollow frequented by frogs and Malthouse Farm was undoubtedly involved in the brewing industry.
Finally, to the south west of the town is Buchan Park, not named after a farm, but Buchan House which is now home to Cottesmore School. Buchan Park was originally part of the Holmbush Estate (previously known as Bewbush Manor) and the first Buchan House was built in the early 1800s by Lord Erskine, the Lord Chancellor and the owner of Holmbush at the time. He named it after the title of his Father, Henry Erskine, who was the 10th Earl of Buchan. In 1880 1,000 acres of Holmbush was annexed as the Buchan Estate and sold to a gentleman called P.F.R. Saillard, who almost immediately demolished the old house and built the large mansion, over the course of 1882 & 1883, which still exists today.
If anyone has any verifiable information as
to the origins of the names of the farms listed below I would be
grateful to hear from you.
Text & photographs © Ian Mulcahy. Contact photos@iansapps.co.uk or visit my 'Use of my photographs' page for licensing queries (ground level photographs only). |
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