Today is Crawley’s Annual Fair…or at least it used to be

While the history of Crawley has mostly been driven by it being a convenient stopping place half-way between London and the South coast, like any town of its age Crawley has played an important role in providing a venue for markets over the years.

The first mention of a market in Crawley comes from 1203, recording that a licence to hold a weekly market had been granted for the town. More significantly, in 1279 Luke de Poynings, whose title included the lordship of Crawley, received permission from King Edward I to hold an annual fair in the town.

That fair was held every year on August 28th all the way up until the Sixteenth Century when it was replaced by twice-yearly fairs which continuted into the early Twentieth Century, by which time it was viewed as more of a problem than a benefit for the town.

Today, the social and economic functions of a Medieval fair are filfulled by hundreds of other different events and facilities, but the emotional connection people continue to feel for this model of event persists. During their last year running Crawley Borough Council, there were concerns that Conservative proposals for relocating the market would kill it off entirely, resulting in a public campaign to stop the proposals. After becoming leader, we cancelled the proposals, took back direct control of managing the market (it had been contracted out) and relocated the stalls to areas of greater pedestrian flow.

I’m not going to claim that this has turned the market back into what it used to be, but it has avoided Crawley losing it entirely. The simple is that the success of a market and the quality of the stalls depends entirely on how much people are prepared to use them. I know that the council, will do whatever it can to maintain the 820 year history of the Crawley market, but as with so many things in life, we all need to do our bit to use it or lose it.