Southgate, West Sussex

Southgate & Crawley Central is an electoral division of West Sussex in the United Kingdom, and returns one member to sit on West Sussex County Council.

Crawley (pronunciation ) is a large town and borough in West Sussex, England. It is 28 miles (45 km) south of London, 18 miles (29 km) north of Brighton and Hove, and 32 miles (51 km) north-east of the county town of Chichester. Crawley covers an area of 17.36 square miles (44.96 km2) and had a population of 106,597 at the time of the 2011 Census. The area has been inhabited since the Stone Age, and was a centre of ironworking in Roman times. Crawley developed slowly as a market town from the 13th century, serving the surrounding villages in the Weald. Its location on the main road from London to Brighton brought passing trade, which encouraged the development of coaching inns. A rail link to London opened in 1841. Gatwick Airport, nowadays one of Britain's busiest international airports, opened on the edge of the town in the 1940s, encouraging commercial and industrial growth. After the Second World War, the British Government planned to move large numbers of people and jobs out of London and into new towns around South East England. The New Towns Act 1946 designated Crawley as the site of one of these. A master plan was developed for the establishment of new residential, commercial, industrial and civic areas, and rapid development greatly increased the size and population of the town over a few decades. The town contains 14 residential neighbourhoods radiating out from the core of the old market town, and separated by main roads and railway lines. The nearby communities of Ifield, Pound Hill and Three Bridges were absorbed into the new town at various stages in its development. In 2009, expansion was being planned in the west and north-west of the town, in cooperation with Horsham District Council, which has now become a new neighbourhood named Kilnwood Vale, but it is not in Crawley. Economically, the town has developed into the main centre of industry and employment between London and the south coast. Its large industrial area supports manufacturing and service companies, many of them connected with the airport. The commercial and retail sectors continue to expand.

The Ancient Priors is a medieval timber-framed hall-house on the High Street in Crawley, a town and borough in West Sussex, England. It was built in approximately 1450, partly replacing an older (probably 14th-century) structure—although part of this survives behind the present street frontage. It has been expanded, altered and renovated many times since, and fell into such disrepair by the 1930s that demolition was considered. It has since been refurbished and is now a restaurant, although it has been put to various uses during its existence. Secret rooms, whose purpose has never been confirmed for certain, were discovered in the 19th century. English Heritage has listed the building at Grade II* for its architectural and historical importance, and it has been described as Crawley's "most prestigious medieval building" and "the finest timber-framed house between London and Brighton".

Crawley railway station is a railway station serving the town of Crawley in West Sussex, England. It is 30 miles 49 chains (49.3 km) down the line from London Bridge, measured via Redhill. It is operated by Southern. The station is the last stop on the Arun Valley Line before it joins the Brighton Main Line.

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.

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.

The George Hotel, also known as the George Inn and now marketed as the Ramada Crawley Gatwick, is a hotel and former coaching inn on the High Street in Crawley, a town and borough in West Sussex, England. 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 hotel contains 84 rooms and 6 meeting rooms with a capacity of up to 150, regularly used for conferences, weddings, exhibitions, seminars and training sessions. 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. Major changes took place in the 1930s, and the annex was knocked down in 1933. 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. John George Haigh, a notorious serial killer in the 1940s known for his "acid bath" murders, stayed at the hotel on numerous occasions, and dined there on the day he killed one of his victims. The hotel is also reputedly haunted by the ghost of a nightwatchman, Mark Hurston (or Hewton) and other curious figures.

The White Hart Inn, also known as the White Hart Hotel, is a coaching inn on the High Street in Crawley, a town and borough in West Sussex, England. 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 in the 21st century. 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.

The Brewery Shades is a public house on the High Street in Crawley, a town and borough in West Sussex, England. The building, which stands on a corner site at the point where the town's ancient High Street meets the commercial developments of the postwar New Town, has been altered and extended several times; but at its centre is a 15th-century timber-framed open hall-house of a type common in the Crawley area in the Middle Ages. Few now survive, and the Brewery Shades has been protected as a Grade II listed building.

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. For the 2022/23 Season, the stadium has reverted back to being named the "Broadfield Stadium".

Crawley Town Football Club is a professional association football club based in the town of Crawley, West Sussex, England. The club was founded as Crawley Football Club in 1896, changed its name to Crawley Town Football Club in 1958. The team compete in EFL League Two, the fourth tier of the English football league system. The club has played home games at Broadfield Stadium since 1997 and are nicknamed the "Reds" or "Red Devils" due to the colour of their kit. Founded in 1896, Crawley helped to found the West Sussex League later that year before transferring to the Mid-Sussex League. The club disbanded in 1935, but were re-established in the Brighton, Hove & District League three years later. The club switched to the Sussex County League in 1951 and then moved on to the Metropolitan League five years later. The club moved from amateur to semi-professional status in 1962 and were accepted into the Southern League the following year. They secured promotion out of Division One in 1968–69, only to suffer relegation the next season. Crawley were promoted out of the Southern League Southern Section 1983–84 and spent the next 21 seasons in the Premier Division, before winning promotion into the Conference as champions of the Southern League in 2003–04. The club turned fully professional in 2005 but faced immediate financial difficulties and entered administration the following year. The club survived and appointed Steve Evans as a manager in May 2007. Evans led them into the Football League as champions of the Conference in 2010–11 and then secured promotion in their first season in League Two. Crawley spent three seasons in League One before relegation in 2015.

The Old Punch Bowl is a medieval timber-framed Wealden hall-house on the High Street in Crawley, a town and borough in West Sussex, England. Built in the early 15th century, it was used as a farmhouse by about 1600, passing through various owners and sometimes being used for other purposes. Since 1929 it has been in commercial use—firstly as a tearoom, then as a bank, and since 1994 as a public house. When built, it was one of at least five similar hall-houses in the ancient parish of Crawley; it is now one of the oldest and best-preserved buildings in Crawley town centre.