Harlow

For other uses, see Harlow (disambiguation).
Not to be confused with Hadlow.
Harlow
District of Harlow
Town & District

Harlow Water Gardens


Shown within Essex
Country United Kingdom
Constituent country England
Region East of England
Ceremonial County Essex
Government
 • Leadership Alternative – Sec.31
 • Control Conservative
 • MP Robert Halfon
Area
 • District 11.79 sq mi (30.54 km2)
Population
 • District Ranked 283rd
84,564
 • Density 7,170/sq mi (2,769/km2)
 • Ethnicity[1] 92.5% White
2.5% Asian
1.8% Black
1.6% Chinese or Other
1.5% Mixed
ONS code 22UJ
Website http://www.harlow.gov.uk/

Harlow is a former Mark One New Town and local government district in the west of Essex, England. Situated on the border with Hertfordshire, it occupies a large area of land on the south bank of the upper Stort Valley, which has been made navigable through other towns and features a canal section near its watermill. Old Harlow is a village-size suburb founded by the early medieval age and most of its high street buildings are early Victorian and residential, mostly protected by one of the Conservation Areas in the district. In Old Harlow is a field named Harlowbury, a de-settled monastic area which has the remains of a chapel, a scheduled ancient monument.

The M11 motorway passes through the east of the district, entirely to the east of the town. Harlow has its own commercial. and leisure economy. It is also an outer part of the London commuter belt and employment centre of the M11 corridor which includes Cambridge and London Stansted to the north. At the time of the 2011 Census, Harlow's population was recorded at 81,944 and its district had the third-highest proportion of social housing in England, 26.9%, a legacy of the 1947 commitment to re-house blitzed London families after World War II and provide a percentage of homes for other needy families who cannot afford market rents.

History

Etymology

There is some dispute as to where the placename Harlow derives from. One theory is that it derives from the Anglo-Saxon words 'here' and 'hlaw', meaning "army hill", probably to be identified with Mulberry Hill, which was used as the moot or meeting place for the district.

The other theory is that it derives from the words 'here' and 'hearg', meaning "temple hill/mound", probably to be identified with an Iron Age burial mound, later a Roman temple site on River Way.

Early history

The earliest deposits are of a Mesolithic (circa 10,000 BC) hunting camp excavated by Davey in Northbrooks in the 1970s (Unpublished) closely followed by the large and unexcavated deposits of Neolithic flint beside Gilden Way. These deposits are mostly known because of the large numbers of surface-bound, worked flint. Substantial amounts of worked flint suggest an organised working of flint in the area. Large amounts of debitage litter the area and tools found include axeheads, hammers, blades, dowels and other boring tools and multipurpose flints such as scrapers. An organised field walk in the late 1990s by Bartlett (Unpublished) indicates that most of the area, some 80 hectares, produced worked flint from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age with a smattering of Mesolithic. This indicates organised industry existed from 5000 BC to 2000 BC. The deposits are so large and dispersed that any major archaeological work in the area will have to take this into consideration before any ground work is started. Harlow was in Roman times the site of a small town (around Harlow Mill railway station) with a substantial stone built temple.[2]

Later history

St Mary's Church, Churchgate Street

The entry in the Norman Domesday Book reads: Herlaua: St Edmunds Abbey before and after 1066; Geoffrey from Count Eustace; Thorgils from Eudo the Steward; Richard from Ranulf, brother of Ilger. Mill (now a 300-year-old listed building and restaurant),[3] 7 beehives, 8 cobs, 43 cattle, 3 foals.

The original village, mentioned in the Domesday Book, developed as a typical rural community around what is now known as Old Harlow, with many of its buildings still standing. This includes for instance the Grade II listed St Mary's Church in Churchgate Street. Its former Chapel is in a ruinous state in a field which was once the Harlowbury Abbey part of Old Harlow, is Grade I listed and is a scheduled ancient monument.[4]

The New Town

The original Harlow New Town was built after World War II to ease overcrowding in London and the surrounding areas due to the mass devastation caused by the bombing during the Blitz. Harlow was a Mark One New Town along with other new towns such as Basildon, Stevenage and Hemel Hempstead. New Towns were designated following the New Towns Act of 1946, with the master plan for Harlow drawn up in 1947 by Sir Frederick Gibberd.[5][6] The town was planned from the outset and was designed to respect the existing landscape. A number of landscape wedges - which later became known as Green Wedges - were designed to cut through the town and separate the neighbourhoods of the town. The development incorporated the market town of Harlow, now a neighbourhood known as Old Harlow, and the villages of Great Parndon, Latton, Tye Green, Potter Street, Churchgate Street, Little Parndon, and Netteswell. Each of the town's neighbourhoods is self-supporting with 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, Gerard Goalen, Maxwell Fry, Jane Drew, Graham Dawbarn, H. T. Cadbury-Brown and William Crabtree. 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,[7] and first modern-style residential tower block, The Lawn,[8][9] 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. From 1894 to 1955 the Harlow parish formed part of the Epping Rural District of Essex.[10] From 1955 to 1974, Harlow was an urban district.[11]

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, has been demolished and replaced by a new civic centre and The Water Gardens shopping area.

Redevelopment

The Newhall housing development built circa 2007 between Old Harlow and Church Langley

Since becoming a new town, Harlow has undergone several stages of expansion, the first of which was the "mini expansion" that was created by the building of the Sumners and Katherines estates in the mid-to-late seventies to the west of the existing town. Since then Harlow has further expanded with the Church Langley estate completed in 2005, and its newest neighbourhood Newhall has completed the first stage of its development, with the second stage underway in 2013. The Harlow Gateway Scheme is currently underway, with the relocation of the Harlow Football Stadium to Barrow's Farm in early 2006, and the building of a new hotel, apartments, and a restaurant adjacent to the railway station being complete. The next stage of this scheme involves the completion of the 530 eco-homes being built on the former sports centre site, and the centre's relocation to the nearby former college playing field site.

Other major developments under consideration include both a northern and southern bypass of the town, and significant expansion to the north, following the completed expansion to the east. The Harlow North[12] plans, currently awaiting permission, involve an extension of the town across the floodplains on the town's northern border, into neighbouring Hertfordshire. The plan was supported by former MP Bill Rammell, all three political groups on Harlow Council, and the East of England Regional Assembly. It is opposed by Hertfordshire County Council, East Herts Council, Mark Prisk, MP for Hertford and Stortford in whose constituency the development would be, and all the parishes concerned. The opposition is coordinated by a local group based in neighbouring East Hertfordshire.[13] An attempt to have Harlow North designated an "Eco Town" was rejected by the Minister for Housing, Caroline Flint MP, in April 2008.

The south of the town centre also underwent major regeneration, with the new Civic Centre being built and the town's famous Water Gardens being redeveloped, a landscape listed by English Heritage.

In 2004 Harlow businessman Mo Ghadami won his High Court case to block a multimillion-pound extension of the town's Harvey Centre. The Iranian-born entrepreneur, who presented his case in person, persuaded Mr Justice Richards to quash Harlow DC's grant of planning permission for the development. In his judgment he backed Mr Ghadami's claim of 'apparent bias or predetermination' in the decision, as a result of the continued participation of Michael Garnett, the chairman of the planning committee, in the planning process after he had attempted in telephone calls to persuade Mr Ghadami to consent to the scheme.[14]

In 2011 the government announced the creation of an enterprise zone in the town.[15] 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.[16]

Environment

A major feature of Harlow New Town is its green spaces; over one third of the district is parkland or fields containing public footpaths. One of the original design features of Gibberd's masterplan is the Green Wedges in the town, designed to provide open space for wildlife and recreation and to separate neighbourhoods. 23% of the district is designated as Green Wedge. The Green Wedges are protected from inappropriate development, through the Local Plan.[17]

The town is entirely surrounded by Green Belt land, a land designation which originated in London to prevent the city sprawling, and 21% of the district is allocated as Green Belt.[17] The National Planning Policy Framework states that one of the purposes of Green Belt land is to protect unrestricted sprawl from large built-up areas.[18]

Harlow Town Park, at a size of 71.6-hectares (just under 1 km²), is one of the largest urban parks in the country. The multi-functional park has been used for recreation and enjoyment for over 50 years. This park is in the centre Netteswell ward and is between the town centre and the train station, both of which are within walking distance of the park, which is a natural thoroughfare from the station to the town centre.

There are only 12 parks with significant post-war element on the English Heritage 'Register of Parks'. With these Harlow is seen as one of the first examples of a civic scheme to marry the modern science of town and country planning.

In 2006 the entire South East of England was affected by drought, with Harlow covered by a water restriction order, preventing unnecessary use of water.

Economy

Harlow was originally expected to provide a majority of employment opportunities in manufacturing, with two major developments of The Pinnacles and Templefields providing the biggest employers in the region; as with the rest of the country, this manufacturing base has declined and Harlow has had to adjust.

The original manufacturing took the form of a biscuit factory, on the Pinnacles. Owned and run as a co-op, it provided employment to the town for over 50 years, before closing in 2002. It has since been demolished and the site now has small industrial units. At its peak, the factory employed over 500 people. At the time of its closure, the owner was Burton's Foods Ltd. An £8 million production line – installed in 1999 – was left to rust in the car park upon the closure of the factory.

Raytheon and GlaxoSmithKline both have large premises within the town. Nortel also had a large site on the eastern edge of the town, acquired when STC was bought in 1991, and it was here that Charles K. Kao developed optical fibre data transmission. Nortel still has a presence, but it is much reduced. One of Europe's leading online golf stores, Onlinegolf, is based in Harlow.

Unemployment is frequently around 10%, higher than the national average in the UK. Harlow also has a large number of people in social housing, almost 30%[19] of dwellings being housing association and local authority owned, and many more privately rented.

Politics

See also: Harlow, Harlow District Council elections

The Member of parliament (MP) for Harlow since the 2010 general election is Conservative Robert Halfon. He defeated Labour's Bill Rammell who had been the MP since the 1997 election, but had only held the seat at the 2005 general election by a majority of 97 votes. Robert Halfon kept his seat at the 2015 general election with an increased majority of 8,350 votes.

Elections to the district council are held in three out of every four years, with one-third of the 33 seats on the council being elected at each election. Labour had a majority from the first election in 1973 until the 2002 election. From then until the 2008 election no party had a majority. The Conservatives gained control in 2008, but lost it back to Labour at the 2012 election and as of the 2015 election the council was composed of the following councillors:-[20]

Party Councillors
Labour Party 19
Conservative Party 12
UKIP 2

Transport

Rail

Harlow is served by two railway stations, Harlow Town railway station and Harlow Mill railway station. There is also a bus service to Epping tube station on the London Underground.

Road

Harlow is reached from junction 7 of the M11 motorway, which runs from London to Cambridge, placing it within a short distance of Stansted Airport and the A120 and the orbital M25 motorway. Running through the town is the A414, a major road from Hertford to Chelmsford and linking the town with the A10 to the west. Another major road running from Harlow is the A1184, which also leads to the nearby town of Bishop's Stortford.

Air

Bishop's Stortford is the closest large town to London Stansted Airport, though Harlow is only 10 miles from this major transport hub, and therefore provides several hundred airport employees. The airport operator withdrew a planning application for a second runway after the General Election of 2010, when all major political parties opposed it.

Bus

Harlow Bus Station

Harlow has an extensive bus network and serves as a regional hub for the local area, with operators such as Arriva (Essex and the Shires), Network Harlow (Subsidiary of Arriva), SX Connect (Subsidiary of Arriva) SM Coaches, Roadrunner Coaches, Regal Busways, Town Link and Trustybus. There are links to many other local towns and villages such as Chelmsford City and Bishops Stortford.

Harlow First Avenue Multi-Modal Corridor

Harlow First Avenue Multi-Modal Corridor

Developments in and around Harlow.
Location Essex
Proposer Essex County Council
Cost estimate £4.4 million (2008)
Completion date February 2010
Geometry KML

Essex County Council was involved in development to Harlow's First Avenue, which was intended to reduce congestion and create better transport connections between the Newhall housing developments. The scheme was implemented in two phases, each phase focusing on developing First Avenue on either side of Howard Way. Phase two had an estimated cost of £4.4 million and was due to be completed in early 2010, phase one is already complete and is listed as having had £3.6 million of funding from the Community Infrastructure Fund (CIF).[21] The scheme includes construction of a shared use cycleway and development to the bus service along First Avenue and into the Newhall development site where 'high quality bus' services between Harlow town centre and Harlow Town Railway station are listed as part of the intentions of the development.

Healthcare

Harlow is served by the NHS Princess Alexandra Hospital, situated on the edge of The High, which is the main Town Centre area of Harlow. This hospital has a 24-hour Accident & Emergency and Urgent Care Centre.

Education

Harlow contains six state-funded secondary schools:

St. Nicholas School is an independent school in the town while Harlow College[28] provides sixth form and further education and St Mark's West Essex Catholic School also provides sixth form education.

Brays Grove Community School and Specialist Arts College closed down in June 2008 due to decreasing pupil numbers over a number of years. Following the schools closure, the site was demolished and redeveloped into a £23 million state of the art Academy which Passmores School and Technology College relocated to in September 2011 opening as Passmores Academy.[29]

In the 1980s a further two secondary schools were closed, Latton Bush (now a commercial centre and recreational centre) and Netteswell (now forms part of the Harlow College Campus)[30] is a major further educational centre, covering GCSE's, A-Levels, and many vocational subjects including Hair and Beauty Therapy, Construction, Mechanics, ICT, and a new centre for Plumbing due to open. The college is currently under major regeneration and is due to open a new university centre in partnership with Anglia Ruskin University, covering mostly Foundation degrees in a variety of subjects relevant to local employers' needs.

An international campus of Memorial University of Newfoundland is located in Old Harlow.

Sport and leisure

Cricket

Harlow Town Cricket Club was formed in 1960 as Stort Cricket Club and plays at Ash Tree Field. The club plays in Shepherd Neame Essex League, runs a junior section that play in the West Essex District Cricket Board League and has a girls team which play other girls teams in the county.

Harlow Town Cricket Club's Pavilion recently underwent a six figure refurbisment to promote women's and disabled cricket in Harlow and the whole of Essex. Essex County Cricket Club Ladies and disability sections use the club as well as the England disability teams.

Harlow has four cricket clubs. Harlow Cricket Club play in Division 1 of the Shepherd Neame Essex League and is based in Old Harlow. The club runs a junior section that play in the West Essex District Cricket Board League. Netteswell and Burnt Mill Cricket Club are based at Harlow Cricket Club, they are a social team that was founded around 1889. Near neighbours Potter Street and Church Langley Cricket Club play in the Herts and Essex League.

Football

The town's football team Harlow Town F.C. play in the Isthmian League Division One North and built a new stadium in 2006 at Barrows Farm with their old ground converted to housing. Their planning gain grant part-funded the Leisure Park mentioned below.

Greyhound Racing

The Harlow Greyhound Stadium has been at its present site for over 20 years and has regular race meetings each week as well as hosting other sporting events.[31]

Lawn Bowls

The 2010 Bowls England Singles Champion was resident Steve Mitchinson who won against Scott Edwards from Sussex.

Rugby Union

Harlow Rugby Football Club play their home games at Ram Gorse in the town. The first team plays in the London and South East Division IIl North East league.

Other sports facilities

The town is the site of Harlow sports centre built in 1960. The building was replaced by the Harlow Leisure Park, built near Harlow College as part of the Gateway Project.[32] Harlows 'Leisurezone' opened on 23 June 2010, with new dry and wet sports facilities, including tennis, gym, football, martial arts and swimming.

In 2010s investments have included its skatepark next to Burnt Mill School. The project has been funded by the investment of over £300,000, largely from Harlow Council with £57,500 from Sport England. The park is floodlit. The 650sq metre park is made from concrete, and has a bowl as well as a street course which contains quarter pipes, flat banks, rails and steps.

Art and culture

The Playhouse Theatre

Harlow is the home to a major collection of public sculptures (over 100 in total) by artists such as Auguste Rodin, Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, and Ralph Brown. Many of these are owned by the Harlow Art Trust, an organisation set up in 1953 by the lead architect of Harlow Frederick Gibberd. Gibberd had idealistic notions of the New Town as a place where people who might not normally have access to art could enjoy great sculptures by great artists on every street corner. Consequently, almost all of Harlow's sculpture collection is in the open air, in shopping centres, housing estates and parks around the town.[33]

In 2009 Harlow Council voted to celebrate Harlow's collection of sculpture by branding Harlow as 'Harlow Sculpture Town – The World's First Sculpture Town'. Harlow Sculpture Town began as an initiative from Harlow Art Trust, presenting itself as 'Sculpture Town', in a similar way to Hay-on-Wye's presentation of itself as Booktown.[34][35]

As part of the 'Sculpture Town' branding, Harlow is also home to the Gibberd Garden, the former home of Frederick and Elizabeth Gibberd, which is a managed twentieth-century garden, and home to some of the Gibberd's private sculpture collection.[36] The Gibberd Gallery, in the Civic Centre, contains a collection of twentieth-century watercolours and temporary exhibitions.

Harlow's Playhouse Theatre is in the town.

Harlow has a local museum, which hold exhibitions and which contains artefacts on Harlow's historic past, charting the story of the town through the ages. Harlow Museum is in Muskham Road, and is set within the grounds of a sixteenth-century manor building with walled gardens. The museum is currently operated by Science Alive, who also run the Time Machine Gallery at the Leisurezone.[37] The museum is run in conjunction with the Essex Records Office (ERO) which holds family history archives in the search room. Admission to the museum is currently free, but visitors are encouraged to make a donation to ensure future maintenance of services.

The Town of Harlow and Harlow New Town are cited in the song Get 'Em Out by Friday, by progressive rock group Genesis, on their 1972 album Foxtrot.

Harlow is the home to The Square, named one of the Top 10 Small Venues in the UK by NME.[38]

People from Harlow

For a full list, see Category:People from Harlow

Twin towns

References

  1. ↑ Resident Population Estimates for Harlow
  2. ↑ Barry C. Burnham, J. S. Wacher: The Small Towns of Roman Britain, Berkeley, Los Angeles 1990, pp. 186-187
  3. ↑ Harlow Mill (now restaurant) – Grade II listing. Historic England. "Details from listed building database (1111737)". National Heritage List for England.
  4. ↑ Historic England. "Details from listed building database (1111694)". National Heritage List for England.
  5. ↑ Gardens Guide – Frederick Gibberd
  6. ↑ New town, a name change and all the jazz BBC News web site
  7. ↑ Memorial University – Department of Geography – Harlow's History and Geography
  8. ↑ English Heritage – Images of England – The Lawn
  9. ↑ BBC News – Redeveloping Essex's fallen utopia
  10. ↑ Vision of Britain – Harlow parish
  11. ↑ Vision of Britain – Harlow UD
  12. ↑ Ropemaker Properties Limited – Harlow North
  13. ↑ Stop Harlow North Campaign Group
  14. ↑ http://www.lgcplus.com/harlow-planning-committee-chairmans-calls-to-objector-under-scrutiny/1231710.article
  15. ↑ "New 'enterprise zones' announced around England". BBC News Online. 17 August 2011. Retrieved 10 March 2015.
  16. ↑ "Essex County Council get first hand experience of Harlow Enterprise Zone". Harlow Star. 17 January 2015. Retrieved 10 March 2015.
  17. 1 2 Harlow Council. "Green Wedge Review", April 2014.
  18. ↑ DCLG. "National Planning Policy Framework", March 2012.
  19. ↑ Harlow District Council – Harlow: A Comparison with Essex 2001 Census
  20. ↑ "District Election Results". Harlow District Council. 8 May 2015. Retrieved 19 May 2015.
  21. ↑ "Harlow, First Avenue, Multi-Modal Corridor, Phase 2" (PDF). November 2008. Retrieved 14 October 2009.
  22. ↑ Stewards Academy
  23. ↑ Mark Hall Academy
  24. ↑ St Marks School
  25. ↑ Burnt Mill Academy
  26. ↑ Passmores Academy
  27. ↑ Sir Charles Kao UTC
  28. ↑ Harlow College
  29. ↑ – Information on new school on the Passmores School and Technology College website. 25 October 2010
  30. ↑ Harlow College
  31. ↑ Harlow Greyhound Stadium
  32. ↑ "Harlow Penguins". Harlow Penguins. Retrieved 6 August 2012.
  33. ↑ Whiteley, Gillian: Sculpture in Harlow, Harlow Art Trust, 2005
  34. ↑ Harlow Herald, 31 March 2009
  35. ↑ http://www.harlowarttrust.org.uk Harlow Art Trust
  36. ↑ http://www.thegibberdgarden.co.uk see Gibberd Garden
  37. ↑ http://www.science-alive.co.uk/harlow-museum/
  38. ↑ "Finalists revealed in NME's search for Britain's Best Small Venue with Jack Daniel's 2015". NME. 10 November 2015.

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Coordinates: 51°46′44″N 0°07′41″E / 51.779°N 0.128°E / 51.779; 0.128

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