Discover 15 hidden attractions, cool sights, and unusual things to do in Crawley (United Kingdom). Don't miss out on these must-see attractions: Target Hill Park, Broadfield Stadium, and Tilgate Park. Also, be sure to include Tilgate Lake in your itinerary.
Below, you can find the list of the most amazing places you should visit in Crawley (England).
Table of Contents
Target Hill Park
Nature reserve in Crawley, England. Target Hill Park is a 9-hectare Local Nature Reserve in Crawley in West Sussex. It is owned by Crawley Borough Council and managed by the council and Gatwick Greenspace Partnership.
The diverse habitats in this park include ponds, wetlands, woodlands, meadows and scrub. There are reptiles such as slow-worms, adders and common lizards, while butterflies include skippers, meadow brown, small heaths and ringlets.
There is access from Buchan Country Park and Hobbs Road.[1]
Broadfield Stadium
Multi-purpose stadium in Crawley, England. The Broadfield Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium in Crawley, England. It is currently used mostly for football matches and is the home ground of Crawley Town F.C. The stadium has a capacity of 6,134 people, and is owned by Crawley Borough Council.
Between 2013 and 2018, the stadium was named the Checkatrade.com Stadium as part of a sponsorship deal. In late 2018, the stadium was renamed "The Peoples Pension Stadium" as part of a new sponsorship deal.[2]
Address: The Checkatrade.Com Stadium Winfield Way, RH11 9RX Crawley Down
Tilgate Park
Park in Crawley, England. Tilgate Park is a large recreational park situated south of Tilgate, South-East Crawley. It is the largest and most popular park in the area.
Originally a 2,185-acre (8.84 km2) part of the ancient Worth Forest, the park and adjacent areas (including the modern-day Furnace Green, Three Bridges, part of Southgate and Tilgate Forest) were part of the larger Tilgate Estate.
Although visitor activity is mostly focused on the area surrounding Tilgate Lake and on the adjacent gardens of a former country mansion, a large area of the park is former silvicultural forest. This is now being managed as a Local Nature Reserve called Tilgate Forest. The park also contains the Tilgate Nature Centre featuring captive breeding of some vulnerable and endangered animal species and varieties.[3]
Address: Titmus Drive, RH10 5PQ Crawley
Tilgate Lake
Lake in England. Tilgate Lake is the biggest of three lakes at Tilgate Park, and remains a popular water activity centre and tourist attraction in Crawley, West Sussex.Tilgate Lake has a wide variety of outdoor activities open to the general public, such as archery, canoeing, fishing, kayaking, mountain biking, raft building, rowing, running, sailing, standup paddleboarding, Open water swimming, team building, navigational challenges, tree climbing and zip trekking.[4]
Friary Church of St Francis and St Anthony
Catholic church in Crawley, England. The Friary Church of St Francis and St Anthony is a Roman Catholic church in Crawley, a town and borough in West Sussex, England. The town's first permanent place of Roman Catholic worship was founded in 1861 next to a friary whose members, from the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin, had been invited to the area by a wealthy local family of Catholic converts. Crawley's transformation from a modest market town to a rapidly growing postwar New Town in the mid-20th century made a larger church necessary, and in the late 1950s the ecclesiastical architect Harry Stuart Goodhart-Rendel was commissioned to build a new church. The friary closed in 1980 and has been demolished, but the large brick church still stands in a commanding position facing the town centre. English Heritage has listed the building at Grade II for its architectural and historical importance.[5]
Address: Haslett Ave W, RH10 1HR Crawley
St Margaret's Church
St Margaret's Church is an Anglican church in the Ifield neighbourhood of Crawley, a town and borough in West Sussex, England. It is the ancient parish church of the village of Ifield; the medieval settlement was expanded to form one of the New Town of Crawley's 13 neighbourhoods, and the church's modern parish now serves several other neighbourhoods as well.
The present building incorporates the chancel from a 13th-century church which may have replaced a wooden building of two or three centuries earlier. Additions in the 14th century included stone effigies representing a knight and his wife, considered to be excellent examples of such sculptures. More structural changes took place at regular intervals, and a major Victorian restoration by architect Somers Clarke included an extension to the nave and a new tower. English Heritage has listed the church at Grade I because of its architectural and historical importance.
The churchyard has many old tombs and monuments, including writer Mark Lemon's grave and an elaborately decorated table tomb, which is listed separately by English Heritage at Grade II. Further memorials adorn the interior walls. Internal fixtures include a 12th-century font with unusual decorative carvings.[6]
Ifield Water Mill
Museum in Crawley, England. Ifield Water Mill is a 19th-century weatherboarded watermill in the Ifield neighbourhood of Crawley, a town and borough in West Sussex, England. Built on the site of an earlier, smaller flour mill, which itself replaced an iron forge—one of many in the Crawley area—it fell into disuse in the 1930s. The local council, which acquired the land for housing development in the 1970s, leased the mill to local enthusiasts, who restored it to working order. The mill and an associated house are listed buildings, and there is also a cottage on the site.[7]
Grattons Park
Nature reserve in Crawley, England. Grattons Park is a 7.7-hectare Local Nature Reserve in Crawley in West Sussex. It is owned by Crawley Borough Council and managed by the council and Gatwick Greenspace Partnership.
Gatwick Stream runs through this park and other habitats are broadleaved woodland and grassland. Flora include lesser celandine and wild daffodils, while there are birds such as tree creepers, great spotted woodpecker and long-tailed tits.
There is access from St Mary's Drive.[8]
St John the Baptist's Church
Anglican church in Crawley, England. St John the Baptist's Church is an Anglican church in Crawley, West Sussex, England. It is the parish church of Crawley, and is the oldest building in the town centre, dating from the 1250—although many alterations have been made since, and only one wall remains of the ancient building. In September 2017, a team from St Peter's Brighton began a new phase in the life of St John's Crawley. St John's offer a variety of services, traditional and informal, contemporary services.
St John's is a Holy Trinity Brompton (HTB) network church.[9]
Address: Church Walk, RH10 1HH Crawley
Tilgate Forest
Nature reserve in Crawley, England. Tilgate Forest is a 6.9-hectare Local Nature Reserve in Crawley in West Sussex. It is owned and managed by Crawley Borough Council and is part of Tilgate Park.
This site has woods, tall herb and fern, and heathland. The most common trees in areas of natural woodland are birch, oak and hazel, while plantations are mainly Scots pine, red oak, western hemlock and beech.[10]
Worth Park Gardens
Park in Crawley, England. Worth Park is in Pound Hill, Crawley. The park covers eight hectares and includes formal gardens, and a lake area.
Some of the trees in the park today may exist from the original 1840s planting and include several varieties of oak and an avenue of cedars.
The park is mainly enclosed by a perimeter belt of trees with an informal network of paths. The paths encircle the formal pond area and the croquet lawn leading to the tennis court. A path crosses a ha-ha and leads to a circular walk around the informal lake at the northwest corner of the park. A significant amount of the original Worth Park garden still exists from the early 1900s but is now in need of substantial restoration.
The area around the lake obtained status as a Site of Nature Conservation Importance in 1992 and is habitat to a large variety of fauna and several rare plants.
Ridley’s Court in Worth Park which dates back to 1882 has been Grade II listed. The stables to Worth Park in Milton Mount Avenue, were designated with the listing by Andy Burnham, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport on 27 February2008. Two Pulhamite rock structure and the fountain and pond basin have also been listed.[11]
Tinsley Green
Tinsley Green is an area in the Borough of Crawley, one of seven local government districts in the English county of West Sussex. Originally a hamlet in the parish of Worth, it was absorbed by the New Town of Crawley in the 1940s and became part of the Pound Hill neighbourhood. As well as houses, farms and woodland, it became the site of the 1930s aerodrome at Gatwick—now London Gatwick Airport. The airport's first railway station was briefly known as Tinsley Green. The game of marbles has a strong local tradition, and Tinsley Green's pub hosts the British and World Marbles Championship each year.[12]
St Nicholas Church
Church in Crawley, England. St Nicholas Church is a Church of England parish church in Worth, a village in Crawley, England, which at one time had the largest geographical parish in England.[13]
Address: Church Rd, RH10 7RT Crawley
St Michael and All Angels Church
Church in Lowfield Heath, England. St Michael and All Angels Church is a church in Lowfield Heath, a depopulated former village in the Borough of Crawley, a local government district with Borough status in West Sussex, England. Built by the Gothic Revival architect William Burges in 1867 to serve the village, it declined in importance as Lowfield Heath was gradually appropriated for the expansion of London Gatwick Airport and of its related development. The last Anglican service was held there in 2004, but the church reopened in 2008 as a Seventh-day Adventist place of worship. The building has Grade II* listed status, which identifies it as a "particularly important building of more than special interest" and of national importance. It is also the only building remaining in the former village from the era before the airport existed: every other structure was demolished, and the church now stands among warehouses, depots and light industrial units.[14]
Hawth Theatre
Theatre in Crawley, England. The Hawth Theatre is an arts and entertainment complex located in 38 acres of woodland about 0.5 mi from the town centre of the English town of Crawley. It is wholly owned by Crawley Borough Council and is currently operated by Parkwood Theatres.[15]
Address: Hawth Ave., RH10 6YZ Crawley