Crawley is at once one of the most beautiful and one of the oldest cities in all of England. Just eighteen miles south of London, situated in the county of Chichester, this town is home to over one hundred thousand citizens who revel in the city's great shopping districts and work in the many international offices and business locations. Many of these residents, however, are not aware of just how much history has occurred on the very soil that they stroll upon each day.
Far back in the Mesolithic era, when Neanderthals still stalked the earth, Crawley was a home to nomadic tribesmen and many of the oldest stone tools ever found have been uncovered on this ancient soil. Many Neolithic burial grounds have also been discovered as well as weaponry from the Bronze Age. The Iron Age, however, was when the Crawley we know and love began to start taking form. The city's fortuitous location near the iron-rich High Weald gave Crawley an immense edge in mining iron and it used the Weald to create large amounts of advanced iron work for over two thousand years after the end of the Iron Age. Furnaces from the end of this era have been uncovered in various locations in Crawley like Goffs Park and later furnaces from the Roman Empire have also been found, proving the city's importance to multiple cultures and generations.
Crawley has been inhabited ever since but its most fascinating relics belong to the Middle Ages, when the Christian religion swept across Europe, populating every major city with ornate churches and abbeys. The St. John the Baptist church in Crawley is one of the earliest examples, having been built in the 1200s. This ancient edifice has crumbled and been rebuilt multiple times over the centuries, though, and the majority of the remains are additions from the fourteenth century on. An even earlier church, built by Saxons in Worth, dates back to the 900s and though it isn't of English origin it is a fascinating picture captured in time to the days when much of Europe was populated by a loose confederation of clans and tribes.
These days, however, Crawley is a fully modern city that offers high-end shops and boutiques in places like Queen's Square and High Street. Thousands come to Crawley to walk around these streets and The Broadwalk, taking in the grandeur of the massive retail chains and possibly commuting to the many towering office buildings in the business district. Efficient train and bus systems send thousands of citizens from the Brighton Main Line to the M23 Motorway daily. Though the city has grown along with the times, those who know the true Crawley can find parts of the city that belie its ancient roots and that are sadly overlooked by most of the people who come as tourists. From Stone Age hunters and gatherers to the crusaders of the Holy Roman Empire and onward, Crawley has seen the world age thousands of years and has always been at the forefront of change and civilization.
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