Harlow
Harlow is a town and local government district located in the west of Essex, England. Harlow was a small town until the mid-20th century. In 1947 it was designated as a new town. Housing estates, industrial areas and a new town centre were subsequently developed, lying mostly to the west and south of the old town, which became known as Old Harlow.
The town lies on the south bank of the River Stort, which also forms the county boundary with Hertfordshire. The M11 motorway passes to the east of the town. At the 2021 census the Harlow built up area had a population of 93,580 and the local government district had a population of 93,300.
Toponymy
The place name Harlow is Old English, but its meaning is uncertain; "army hill" or "temple hill" are both possible. The second element comes from hlaw, meaning "mound" or "hill", but the original meaning of the first element is not clear. One theory is that it derives from here meaning "army". A Bronze Age bowl barrow to the south of Mulberry Green reputedly served as the meeting place for the Harlow hundred in medieval times. This ancient mound may therefore have been described as an "army hill".An alternative theory is that the first element is hearg meaning a temple or holy place, and that the mound or hlaw in question is not the one near Mulberry Green, but an Iron Age burial mound sometimes known as Stanegrove Hill, south of River Way. A Roman temple is known to have been built on this mound around 80AD, so it may have been called a "temple hill".
History
Early history
Some Neolithic and Bronze Age finds have been found in the area, with more substantial evidence of occupation from the late Iron Age onwards. Excavations at the Iron Age mound at Stanegrove Hill have additionally found some features from the Paleolithic era, and evidence that flint tools were made at the site during the Mesolithic era.In Roman times, Harlow was the site of a small town. As well as the temple at Stangrove Hill, a Roman villa stood to the north of Old Oak Way.
Harlow before the new town
The Domesday Book of 1086 lists four estates or manors at the vill of Herlaua. The vill also gave its name to one of the hundreds of Essex. The manors were not individually named in the Domesday Book, but the largest of the four, owned by Bury St Edmunds Abbey, was later recorded as Harlowbury.No church or priest is explicitly mentioned at Harlow in the Domesday Book, but a church is known to have been built on the site of the current parish church around 1044, probably replacing an earlier church on the site. The current church was built in the mid-12th century. It was initially dedicated to St Mary, but is now jointly dedicated to St Mary and St Hugh. The building has been significantly remodelled and extended on numerous occasions, leaving little older fabric visible.
In 1218, the abbots of Bury St Edmunds secured a market charter, allowing for a weekly market and annual fairs to be held at Harlow. Whereas the church is on Churchgate Street, possibly indicating an earlier centre of the settlement, the market was established to the west, in a new market place between Market Street and Fore Street. The fairs were held in the large open space of Mulberry Green, in between Churchgate Street and the market place.
There is some evidence that there was a further area of settlement to the north of Mulberry Green around the manor house of Harlowbury, but by the 13th century this area had become depopulated, leaving Harlowbury just comprising the manor house and its private chapel. The chapel was built around 1180.
Medieval Harlow therefore comprised a number of closely adjoining but distinct centres: the market place, Mulberry Green, Churchgate Street, and the manor house complex at Harlowbury. These gradually coalesced into a single urban area. The wider parish of Harlow also included an extensive surrounding rural area with a number of other hamlets. The parish stretched from the banks of the Stort in the north down to the common land of Harlow Common in the south. The largest hamlet in the parish was Potter Street, which grew up near Harlow Common on the main road towards London.
A mill is mentioned in the Domesday Book. A watermill called Harlow Mill stands on the River Stort near the bridge on the main road to the north. The current building appears to have been built in the 17th century. The mill buildings have been converted to a restaurant.
The main road from London to Bishop's Stortford historically came into the old town from the south via London Road, turned sharply east at the market place to run along High Street, then turned north again at Mulberry Green to follow the road now called Old Road to reach the bridge over the River Stort by Harlow Mill. A shorter road from the market place to the bridge was built around 1830, later known as Station Road. As thus shortened, this north-south route was subsequently numbered as part of the A11 from London to Norwich.
Harlow's original market did not endure. It seems to have ceased operating sometime between 1592 and 1600, possibly as a result of the decline in the wool trade. The market was re-established in the early 19th century, but ceased operating again in 1850. The old market place between Market Street and Fore Street was gradually filled in by buildings.
Harlow railway station opened in 1841 on the Northern and Eastern Railway from London to Bishop's Stortford, which was later extended to Cambridge. Another station to the west called Burnt Mill also opened with the line, serving a small hamlet of that name.
Prior to the designation of the new town in 1947, Harlow was usually described as a small town, although it was sometimes referred to as a large village.
The New Town
Following the Second World War, the government adopted a policy of building new towns as part of the post-war reconstruction. The new towns were intended to ease overcrowding in London and other bomb-damaged towns and cities. Their modern housing estates and separate industrial areas were also designed to allow for subsequent population growth and to give industries which relocated to the new towns room to grow. The New Towns Act 1946 set the legislative framework for building the new towns. Harlow was formally designated as a new town on 25 March 1947. It was the fourth such new town to be designated, after Stevenage, Crawley, and Hemel Hempstead.The masterplan for Harlow was drawn up in 1947 by Frederick Gibberd, who was later knighted in recognition of his work at Harlow and elsewhere. The town was planned from the outset and was designed to respect the existing landscape. Sylvia Crowe, the landscape architect, worked on Harlow New Town between 1948 and 1958. A number of green landscape wedges were designed to cut through the town and separate the neighbourhoods of the town. The old town became known as Old Harlow. Other settlements across the designated area for the new town included Great Parndon, Latton, Tye Green, Potter Street, Little Parndon, and Netteswell. Each of the town's neighbourhoods was designed to have its own shopping precincts, community facilities and pubs. Gibberd invited many of the country's leading post-war architects to design buildings in the town, including Philip Powell and Hidalgo Moya, Leonard Manasseh, Michael Neylan, E C P Monson, William Crabtree, Maxwell Fry, Jane Drew, Graham Dawbarn, H. T. Cadbury-Brown and Gerard Goalen. Goalen designed his first church in the town, Our Lady of Fatima, which is a Grade II* listed building.
The site for the new town centre was closer to the small Burnt Mill station than Harlow station. Burnt Mill station was rebuilt at a much larger scale, and was renamed Harlow Town on completion of the new station in 1960. The old Harlow station was renamed Harlow Mill at the same time.
Harlow has one of the most extensive cycle track networks in the country, connecting all areas of the town to the town centre and industrial areas. The cycle network is composed mostly of the original old town roads. The town's authorities built Britain's first pedestrian precinct, and first modern-style residential tower block, The Lawn, constructed in 1951; it is now a Grade II listed building. Gibberd's tromp-l'oeil terrace in Orchard Croft and Dawbarn's maisonette blocks at Pennymead are also notable, as is Michael Neylan's pioneering development at Bishopsfield. The first neighbourhood, Mark Hall, is a conservation area.
file: Piper mosaic, St Paul's Church, Harlow.jpg|thumb|right|175px|Mosaic by John Piper in St Paul's Church
The town centre, and many of its neighbourhood shopping facilities have undergone major redevelopment, along with many of the town's original buildings. Subsequently, many of the original town buildings, including most of its health centres, the Staple Tye shopping centre and many industrial units have been rebuilt. Gibberd's original town hall, a landmark in the town built in 1958, was demolished and replaced by Harlow Civic Centre and The Water Gardens shopping area in the 2000s. One significant survivor from the initial development of Harlow New Town is the Church of England Church of St Paul situated in the town centre. Built between 1957 and 1959 by Derrick Humphrys and Reginald Hurst in a modernist style, it is now a Grade II listed building. Inside it preserves a large mosaic made by John Piper in 1960-61 depicting Jesus at Emmaus.
Redevelopment and expansion
Since becoming a new town, Harlow has undergone several stages of expansion beyond the 1947 masterplan, starting with the Sumners and Katherines estates in the 1970s to the west of the town. Since then, Harlow has further expanded with the Church Langley estate completed in 2005, and the Newhall development built in the early 2000s. The Harlow Gateway Scheme, also completed, first involved the relocation of the Harlow Football Stadium and the building of a new hotel, apartments and a restaurant adjacent to Harlow Town railway station. Phase 2 of this scheme involved the construction of 530 eco-homes on the former sports centre site and the building of the Harlow Leisurezone adjacent to the town's college in the early 2010s.The south of the town centre also underwent major regeneration, with the new Civic Centre being built and the town's Water Gardens being redeveloped in the 2000s, a landscape listed by English Heritage.
In 2011, the government announced the creation of an enterprise zone in the town. Harlow Enterprise Zone consists of two separate sites under development, at Templefields and London Road, with the London Road site divided into north and south business parks.
In 2022, Harlow Council was awarded £23.7 million from the government's Towns Fund to be used for several large investments in the town. These include the development of a new bus station and transport hub, regeneration of Broad Walk in the town and a new sustainable transport corridor between the town centre and Harlow Town station. The majority of these works are underway as of mid 2024, with completion of the programme expected by March 2026.
In 2017, the government designated the "Harlow and Gilston Garden Town" as an initiative to provide new housing in the area around Harlow, including on land beyond the current district boundaries in the neighbouring Epping Forest District and north of the River Stort around the village of Gilston in East Hertfordshire. Planning permission for 10,000 homes and supporting infrastructure in the Gilston area was granted in 2025.