Friary Church of St Francis and St Anthony, Crawley

The Friary Church of St Francis and St Anthony stands in Crawley, West Sussex, on a commanding site facing the town centre. It is a large brick Roman Catholic church built in the late 1950s to replace an earlier 19th-century church and friary. The architect was Harry Stuart Goodhart-Rendel, who arranged the new building at a right-angle to its predecessor so that old tombs could be preserved in the foundations. The friary itself, a square of three ranges around a courtyard, was demolished in 1980, but the church remains. English Heritage has listed the building at Grade II for its architectural and historical importance. The church is worth the journey because it marks a turning point in Crawley’s history. When the town was designated a New Town in 1947, its population grew rapidly and the old church could no longer serve the worshippers. Goodhart-Rendel’s design incorporated elements from the earlier building, including tombs of the Blunt family who played a key role in bringing the Capuchin friars to Crawley. The friars had arrived in 1859 at the invitation of a local Catholic family and founded the first permanent Roman Catholic place of worship in the area. Inside, the visitor finds a spacious interior opened up by a 1988 reorganisation and a 2009 refurbishment by Deirdre Waddington. A mural of Pope Benedict XVI’s coat of arms was added during the latter work, which won a Royal Institute of British Architects prize. Behind the altar lies the Blunt Chapel, containing tombs of Francis and Alice Blunt with a stone effigy carved by their brother Wilfrid. Nearby in the burial ground rest Catherine Walters, Lord Alfred Douglas, and three war graves from the two world wars. The church faces the town centre, making it a prominent landmark in Crawley.