St John the Baptist's Church, Crawley

In the Norman era, Slaugham and Cuckfield were the most important places in the north of the county of Sussex. As the new village was distant from the parish church at Slaugham (St Mary's), several miles south, a stone church was built as a chapel of ease. and it was still the daughter church of Slaugham in 1291; but by the early 15th century it was referred to as a "free" church and a "permanent chantry". and St John the Baptist's was regarded as its parish church by the time chantries were abolished in the 1540s. Crawley was a small, very narrow, split parish, and did not cover the whole of the village of Crawley: the boundary between it and the parish of Ifield—and between the Hundred of…

The church is built of Sussex limestone. The chancel roof is tiled, but the rest of the church is roofed with slabs of local stone. The south wall of the nave is original, although it has some 15th-century alterations; the nave ceiling is also from this era, and features wind bracing and tie beams. The tower, rebuilt in the 19th century, is in three stages and features mediaeval carvings. The pulpit is 17th-century; the altar rails are from that century or early in the 18th. There is some stained glass in the 19th-century north aisle and the east end of the chancel. The oldest internal fixture is the marble font, which is 13th-century.

In October 2017, the parish size was reduced to include Crawley town centre, its northernmost point being where Kilnmead road meets the London road, and southernmost where Goffs Park road meets the Brighton Road. The previous parish covered by the church was much larger than the ancient parish of Crawley. It covered most of the town west and north of the railway line between Gatwick Airport and Crawley railway stations, and up to the boundary of the airport. The boundary was defined by the A23 London Road from its junction with the Horsham Road in Southgate to the edge of the Manor Royal industrial estate at County Oak; the southern perimeter road of Gatwick Airport—incorporating all the…