Crawley, Hampshire
| Crawley | |
| Hampshire | |
|---|---|
 The Dower House in Crawley | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | SU4278834791 |
| Location: | 51°6’39"N, 1°23’25"W |
| Data | |
| Post town: | Winchester |
| Postcode: | SO21 |
| Dialling code: | 01962 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Winchester |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
Winchester |
Crawley is a small village and parish in the hundred of Buddlesgate, Hampshire. It is a few miles from the county town (and former capital) of Winchester. The village is the location of Crawley Court, currently the headquarters of broadcast company Arqiva.
Parish church
The parish church, dedicated to St Mary, is of 12th-century foundation. It was altered in the 15th century and restored in 1887 and 1901. It is Grade II* listed.
Crawley House and Court
In 1605 a manor house was built by Sir Gerard Fleetwood. It this was progressively renewed, improved and enlarged by subsequent tenants. The Crawley estate was sold in 1786 for £21,000 to Sir Willoughby Ashton who, in 1791, sold to Richard Meyler whose wealth had been created by slave trading and sugar plantations in the West Indies. In 1794 he built a Real (Royal) Tennis Court adjoining the house "for the delectation of the Prince of Wales and his brother the Duke of Gloucester".
Richard Meyler died in 1802 and the estate passed to his son Dick who continued to own and occupy Crawley House. In 1818 the estate passed to a distant relative, Richard Bright, who rarely visited Crawley and undertook no maintenance leaving the building to slowly became derelict.
In 1869, on the death of Richard Bright’s son Henry, Lord Ashburton became the new owner. He felled much of the timber on the estate and stripped the tennis court of some of its stone, while leaving the Jacobean house to deteriorate further. In 1874 Lord Ashburton sold the estate to Adam Kennard, a wealthy London banker. He demolished Crawley House in 1877 and commissioned the President of RIBA (Sir Pepys Cockerill) to design and build a large Elizabethan-style mansion, Crawley Court, some distance from the old site.
After nearly a century Crawley Court too became derelict and was demolished in 1971, to be replaced by modern offices.
Outside links
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Crawley, Hampshire) |
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