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. 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. 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. 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 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. 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. 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.
Permitted development (office to residential) flats A government policy to allow developers to convert office space to residential has been criticised for leading to a proliferation of new 'rabbit hutch'-sized flats, which are then let to London-borough waiting-list families. These are erected under
permitted development rights which mean the local authority cannot refuse
planning permission. ==Environment==