Harlow, United Kingdom

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 0.7 miles (1.1 km) 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.

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.