Maintenance and repair work planned for one of Crawley's oldest buildings

Ancient Priors, in the High Street, was built around 1450, when Henry VI was on the throne and a chap called Jack Cade was organising a rebellion in Sussex and Kent against the high taxes and prices brought on by paying for the 100 Years War.

Some 575 years later and Crawley Borough Council has submitted an application to its planning team for work to the Grade-II* listed building, ranging from redecorating to timber frame repairs.

The work will include: re-pointing the chimney stacks using traditional lime mortar, maintenance of the Horsham Stone and clay tiled roofing, and repairs to rotten and damaged parts of the timber frame.

It will also see unsuitable paint stripped from the structural timber frames – subject to budget – traditional lime render repairs, repairs to damaged and rotten windows, redecorations, and repairs to a modern flat roof.

A heritage assessment statement submitted with the application said: “A conscious effort is being made to ensure heritage assets are repaired and kept. The main aim of the works is to preserve the building.

“Traditional repairs to timber frame parts are to be undertaken using matching timber and traditional jointing details. To historical parts no cement is to be used with only traditional materials specified including lime render, lime mortar, lime putty, lime wash, linseed oil paints, linseed oil putties etc.

“It is proposed to remove unsuitable modern cement pointing from the historic brick built chimney stacks and to re-point in lime mortar.”

The council has not yet said how much the work will cost.

Once described as ‘the finest timber-framed house between London and Brighton’, Ancient Priors started life as a private home, passing from owner to owner before becoming the Whyte Harte Inn during the mid-1600s.

When the current White Hart Inn was built further along the High Street in 1770, Ancient Priors became a furniture shop and, more recently, housed restaurants. The restaurants included Minters, which was owned by Crawley lad and boxing legend Alan Minter.

To view the application, log on to planningregister.crawley.gov.uk and search for CR/2024/0472/LBC.