New Jerusalems: Crawley New Town
In 2021, the Wellcome Trust granted funding for the ‘New Jerusalems: post-war New Town archives in Britain and Ireland‘ project. This collaborative project will make eleven archives from post-war new towns in England, Wales and Ireland accessible for research.
The new towns included are: Basildon, Bracknell, Crawley, Cwmbran, Newton Aycliffe, Peterlee, Redditch, Runcorn, Shannon, Stevenage and Warrington. The new town archives are held by nine partner organisations which were brought together through the Association of New Towns Archives and Museums.
Here at WSRO, we will be cataloguing the archive of the Crawley Development Corporation which includes minutes, correspondence, maps and plans, photographs, and planning records. This archive, along with those of the other new towns, will provide a substantial increase in the evidence base available for researchers seeking to interrogate the new towns’ legacy.
You can read more about the national project on the New Jerusalems website.
Cataloguing Crawley New Town: What is a ‘new town’?
By Alice Millard, project archivist With funding granted by the Wellcome Trust, nine organisations across England, Wales, and Ireland have embarked upon a major project to catalogue and make accessible the archives of 11…
Cataloguing Crawley New Town: The Team Behind the Corp.
By Alice Millard, project archivist Behind the development of Crawley New Town was a phenomenal group of people. As well as the ten or so members of the executive committee, there were more than…
Cataloguing Crawley New Town: The Master Plan(s) and Planner(s)
Each development corporation managing the building of a new town produced a master plan. This document, or documents, outlined the vision for the new town and went into detail about the provision for housing,…
Cataloguing Crawley New Town: An Industrial Haven
Manor Royal is a distinctive district of Crawley. It was earmarked early in the New Town’s planning stage as the perfect area to contain the town’s industrial pursuits. From its opening in the early…
Cataloguing Crawley New Town: The Catalogue is Live!
By Alice Millard, Project Archivist After a year of cataloguing, the Crawley New Town archive is now available to the public at West Sussex Record Office. It is the first time these 3000+ records…
Cataloguing Crawley New Town: The New Town Blues
By Alice Millard, New Jerusalems Project Archivist Please be aware that this blog post discusses mental health issues and drug use. No, the ‘New Town Blues’ were not a football club, but rather the…
West Sussex Record Office 