Crawley Old Town: SIX PICTURES: The White Hart

Tuesday, 4 April 2017

SIX PICTURES: The White Hart

The White Hart Inn, also known as the White Hart Hotel, was built in the late 18th century to replace an older inn also under the sign of the White Hart. It also served as Crawley's main post office for most of the 19th century, and still operates as a public house today. Its partly timber-framed structure, which incorporates part of an early 17th-century building, is characteristic of the area. It is designated a Grade II Listed building.

Most sources agree that the new White Hart Inn opened in 1770, although some identify 1790 as the date. Architectural studies made in 1995 and 2003 attributed a date of around 1600 to the southern part of the building, suggesting that the inn was built around the core of an older structure.

The White Hart Inn is a timber-framed building consisting of three bays on a north–south orientation. The exterior is clad in stuccoed brickwork, the roof is tiled, and there are three brick chimneys. The southern section is the remnants of a timber-framed house dating from about 1600 (original estimates attributed an 18th-century date, in line with the actual opening of the inn). This had a stair turret at the rear leading into the attic, but only the topmost steps of this structure remain. The attic is still a separate space, now two rooms with one external window under the roof gable at the south end. Later, the building was extended to the rear. In about 1830, an extension was built to the north; this is of two storeys, like the earlier part, but is slightly taller and has a separate roofline. It is of brick and has no timber-framing. Similarly, no timber is now visible on the lower storey of the older section of the building.