The
George was one of the country's most famous and successful coaching inns, and
the most important in Sussex, because of its location halfway between the
capital city, London, and the fashionable seaside resort of Brighton. Cited as
"Crawley's most celebrated building", it has Grade II* listed status.
It
is known that a building called the George has existed on the site since the
16th century or earlier, and many sources date the core of the existing inn to
1615. The George Hotel has three principal sections, facing east and running
from south to north parallel with Crawley High Street. Nothing of the exterior
is original, except perhaps for parts of the tiled roof. The present structure
is made up of disparate parts of various dates: the inn expanded to take in
adjacent buildings as its success grew in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The
inn has been associated with royalty, bareknuckle prizefighting, smuggling
among other things, and has been the subject of novels and paintings. It was
central to the plot of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's mystery novel Rodney Stone,
written in 1896. The hotel is also reputedly haunted by the ghost of a
nightwatchman, Mark Hurston (or Hewton) and other curious figures.
The
first mention of The George appears in 1579, when landowner Richard Covert died
and passed on an area of land (a tenement) to his son. This necessitated a
payment to the Lord of the manor. The tenement bore the name of The George, and
was situated in a valuable position: in the centre of Crawley, on the west side
of the High Street (and just inside the parish of Ifield, a nearby village; the
boundary between Ifield and Crawley parishes ran along the middle of the High
Street). The building on the land was almost certainly an inn at that time, and
many sources assert that its oldest parts date from about 1450. Its centre
section, an open hall-house of a type common in the area, may be even older, possibly
late 14th century.
An
early remodelling came in 1615, when a timber-framed extension was built on the
south side, a new jettied cross-wing was added at the front and a stone
fireplace was installed. This bears the date 1615 (although this may have been
carved later), and has carvings and arches. Meanwhile, a gallows was erected
outside the hotel, partly spanning the High Street; one end was attached to the
top floor of the building.
Bareknuckle
prizefighting was a major local attraction from which The George benefited:
nearby Crawley Down and Copthorne were "the most renowned battlefields in
the south of England", and The George itself became "the hub of the
pugilistic universe". Tens of thousands of people of all classes—including
members of the Royal Family (such as the Prince Regent), statesmen and famous
playwrights—would visit Crawley Down or Copthorne Common to watch and bet on
extremely violent contests which could last for hours; the George was
invariably used as the base from which to visit these illegal bouts. Other
famous visitors of this era included Lord Nelson—whose sister lived in the
nearby village of Handcross, Queen Victoria, who on one occasion was stranded
overnight when her carriage broke down, and the Prince Regent, whose patronage
of Brighton and regular travelling of the London–Brighton road indirectly
brought about the upturn in fortunes experienced by Crawley in general, and the
George Hotel in particular, during the 18th century. In this era, it was one of
Britain's best-known and most important coaching inns, and it held "the
premier position" among Sussex's many such establishments.
Also
by this time, the former gallows had been converted into an inn sign that soon
became a landmark, and some structural and exterior alterations were made—the
first of many over the subsequent years.The earliest known photograph of the
George, dated 1867, shows a dilapidated building of several uncoordinated
parts: it had expanded over the years to take in buildings on each side of the
original medieval inn, and it was considered a purely functional building with
no obvious architectural merit.
The
George underwent more renovation and was extended further. In particular, an
old (possibly 18th-century) free-standing building which stood in the middle of
the wide High Street, and which was once used as a candle factory, was acquired
by the George's owners and became an annex. It was this building, rather than
the main part of the hotel, which accommodated Queen Victoria when she was
forced to stay overnight.
The
George Hotel has three principal sections, facing east and running from south
to north parallel with Crawley High Street. Despite uncertainty over its early
history, the building is generally agreed to have 15th-century origins, which
are most evident in the northernmost bay. This section has a much lower
roofline than the rest of the hotel, although the whole building is two-storey.
The northern section is believed to have been a two-bay open hall-house with a
parlour wing; their thick wooden roof beams (in the form of crown posts),
blackened by smoke, and timber-framed walls survive. The centre section was the
south wing of the original building; it would have been the service area to the
hall-house, with kitchen facilities and similar, and formed a cross-wing with
large joists and a cellar. The rear wall has braces which suggest the former
existence of a rear entrance leading to the stables behind. A stone fireplace
inside may be as old as the date carved on it—1615—but the inscription is
believed to be more recent. None of the exterior is original, although parts of
the tiled roof may be. It is laid with slabs of Horsham stone—a local material
commonly used on old roofs in the Crawley area.
All photos by Ian Mulcahy. E-mail crawleyoldtown@gmail.com
