Where to Stay in Harlow, England

What is Harlow known for?

Designation as a new town in 1947 turned a small Essex town into planned housing estates, industrial areas and a purpose-built centre, laid out mostly west and south of what became Old Harlow. The old core survives. St Mary & St Hugh, Old Harlow stands in that older ground, and Harlow Museum & Walled Gardens keeps the local collection.

Harlow Sportcentre serves the newer estates. Harlowbury deserted medieval village and the Little Parndon moated site lie in the same district.

What are the main landmarks in Harlow?

Old Harlow holds the oldest fabric, where St Mary & St Hugh, The Lion Inn and Harlow Mill stand from before the designation. The Church of St Paul carries an attached bell tower, church hall and raised pavement, while the Church of Our Lady of Fatima and the Church of St Andrew stand among the later parishes. Harlow Museum & Walled Gardens keeps the collection.

Harlowbury deserted medieval village and the Little Parndon moated site are earthworks rather than buildings, and Parndon Mill House, Hill House and The Red House survive from before the rebuilding. Harlow Sportcentre covers the rest.

What is the history of Harlow?

Harlow was small before the plan. A town in the west of Essex with its parish church and its mill, it stayed that way until the middle of the twentieth century, and older marks lay all around it. Harlowbury deserted medieval village, the Little Parndon moated site and manor buildings such as Sheering Hall and Hill House all predate the rebuilding.

St Mary & St Hugh served the old settlement. The Lion Inn and Harlow Mill belong to that same early town, the one whose name the whole district took. Designation came in 1947.

Housing estates, industrial areas and a new town centre followed, laid out mostly west and south of the original settlement, which from then on was distinguished as Old Harlow. Churches served the new districts as they filled, among them the Church of St Paul with its attached bell tower and church hall, the Church of Our Lady of Fatima and the Church of St Andrew, while the older parishes of Great Parndon and Gilston kept their own. Harlow Sportcentre came with them.

Harlow Museum & Walled Gardens holds what survives of the earlier town, and the pair of names still splits the district between the plan and everything that preceded it.

Where is Harlow?

The town has two centres. Harlow occupies a district in the west of Essex, England, with the planned town spread mostly west and south of the older settlement at Old Harlow. Two mill sites survive, Harlow Mill and Parndon Mill House, and the parishes of Great Parndon, Little Parndon and Gilston edge the built-up area.

Sheering Hall lies beyond them. Harlowbury deserted medieval village sits on ground the plan never covered.

What is the climate of Harlow?

Essex weather is undramatic. Temperate air keeps Harlow's winters cool rather than severe and its summers warm rather than fierce, and rain arrives in every month without ever taking over a season. Open estate roads catch the wind, and the walkways between Harlow's districts feel colder in a January gust than the sheltered lanes of Old Harlow.

Layers beat umbrellas.

How do you get to Harlow?

The plan decides the routes. Harlow was laid out whole, so its roads run between designated districts rather than out from one old market square, and reaching Old Harlow from the new centre means crossing the estates that went in west and south of it. Harlow Mill and the lanes near St Mary & St Hugh mark the older way in, while the industrial areas take the heavier traffic on the newer side of town.

Distances flatter the map.