page_title: The George Hotel, Crawley
section_title: Architecture
hierarchical_section_title: The George Hotel, Crawley / Architecture
caption_attribution_description: English: The George Hotel, Crawley
context_page_description: The George Hotel, also known as the George Inn and now marketed as the Ramada Crawley Gatwick, is a hotel and former coaching inn on the High Street in Crawley, a town and borough in West Sussex, England. The George was one of the country's most famous and successful coaching inns, and the most important in Sussex, because of its location halfway between the capital city, London, and the fashionable seaside resort of Brighton. Cited as "Crawley's most celebrated building", it has Grade II* listed status.
  It is known that a building called the George has existed on the site since the 16th century or earlier, and many sources date the core of the existing inn to 1615. The George Hotel has three principal sections, facing east and running from south to north parallel with Crawley High Street. Nothing of the exterior is original, except perhaps for parts of the tiled roof. The hotel contains 84 rooms and 6 meeting rooms with a capacity of up to 150, regularly used for conferences, weddings, exhibitions, seminars and training sessions.
context_section_description: The George Hotel has three principal sections, facing east and running from south to north parallel with Crawley High Street.  Despite uncertainty over its early history, the building is generally agreed to have 15th-century origins, which are most evident in the northernmost bay.  This section has a much lower roofline than the rest of the hotel, although the whole building is two-storey.  The northern section is believed to have been a two-bay open hall-house with a parlour wing; their thick wooden roof beams (in the form of crown posts), blackened by smoke, and timber-framed walls survive.  The centre section was the south wing of the original building; it would have been the service area to the hall-house, with kitchen facilities and similar, and formed a cross-wing with large joists and a cellar.  The rear wall has braces which suggest the former existence of a rear entrance leading to the stables behind.  A stone fireplace inside may be as old as the date carved on it—1615—but the inscription is believed to be more recent.
  None of the exterior is original, although parts of the tiled roof may be.  It is laid with slabs of Horsham stone—a local material commonly used on old roofs in the Crawley area.  The façade is mostly tile-hung to the first floor with timber framing below.  The entrance is gabled and has a canted bay window of 18th-century origin.  The southern part of the façade is stuccoed and topped by a parapet.  It is probably an 18th-century refacing of an older building (or buildings) incorporated into the hotel as it grew.
  The hotel, now known as Ramada Crawley Gatwick, has 84 rooms, including singles, doubles, twin rooms, family rooms and four-bed rooms. Its six meeting rooms, with a capacity of up to 150, are regularly used for conferences, weddings, exhibitions, seminars and training sessions.  There is also a Thai restaurant, a Chinese buffet and a Roman Empire-themed cocktail bar.
caption: The George Hotel
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