The Ancient Priors is a medieval timber-framed hall house on the High Street in Crawley, a town and borough in West Sussex, England.

[3][4] Crawley's development as a permanent settlement dates from the early 13th century, when a charter was granted for a market to be held;[5] a church was founded by 1267.

[7][8] Some sources assert that a building stood on the site of the Ancient Priors by this time, claiming that it was built between 1150[9] and 1250[10] and was used as a chantry-house or priest's house associated with St John the Baptist's Church.

)[19] By the 19th century it became two separate entities again: according to the United Kingdom Census 1841, two families lived in the main building and a woman and seven children occupied the older section.

[20][21] Visitors to the hotel included Lord Kitchener,[22] but the venture failed and a shop unit with residential accommodation above was established instead.

[20] During this period, the owner tried unsuccessfully to auction the property, and the associated landholding reverted to the original 2 acres (0.81 ha) because the rest of the estate had been acquired by the railway, the local council and other parties who wanted to build on it.

[4][9][23] During the 1940s John George Haigh the acid-bath murderer, used on the occasion of their visits to his workshop in nearby Leopold Road to entertain his victim Mrs Olive Durand-Deacon to tea at the Ancient Priors.

[24] Crawley-born boxer Alan Minter, who won a bronze medal at the 1972 Olympic Games and became Middleweight champion of the world in 1979, bought the restaurant in 1977 together with his manager.

They bought the premises in 1983 and renamed it "Solomon's Restaurant", but stopped trading on 27 February 1988 and sold the building to an estate agency.

The owners said they could not compete with the popularity of fast-food outlets, and claimed that a poor atmosphere in the town at night discouraged people from eating out.

[1][31] In the late 19th century, a small eastward-projecting extension was built at the rear of the northern side, making the building more U-shaped; this part is of brick, but the rest of the structure is timber-framed with some plasterwork.

[28][32] Earlier sources asserted that the southern wing of the building was a later addition to the main part: the early 16th century was suggested as the likely construction date.

[35] Crown posts, arched braces, purlins, open trusses and tie-beams can be seen inside; their quality has been described as "very superior" and "remarkable", and the roof structure as a whole is described as unusual for the area.

[4][21] The room under the floor was reached in a similarly awkward way: if a carving above the mantelpiece was twisted in a certain way, the fireplace would move outwards to reveal a set of steps leading down to the hiding place.