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Historic area of Harlow, England · United Kingdom

Old Harlow

Old Harlow is the old town area of Harlow, in Essex, England.

Old Harlow
Old Harlow · Keithknight57
The place

Old Harlow is the old town area of Harlow, in Essex, England. It was the historical town centre prior to Harlow being designated a new town in 1947 during the new towns in the United Kingdom movement.

Adapted from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

What is there

Worth seeing in and around Old Harlow

10 places within 25 km that the world writes about, in the order of how widely: the ones a visitor has heard of first, then the ones only a local would name.

  1. 01
    Harlow Town Park

    Harlow Town Park is a 164-acre public park in Harlow, Essex, England. The park is one of the largest urban parks in Britain.

    2.5 km · park in Harlow, Essex, England, UK · Wikipedia
  2. 02
    Church of St Mary the Virgin, Harlow

    St Mary the Virgin Church is located in Latton, Harlow, Essex, England. It is an Anglican church and is liberal catholic in tradition.

    1.3 km · church in Harlow, UK · Wikipedia
  3. 03
    Harlow Sportcentre

    Harlow Sportcentre was a cricket ground in Harlow, Essex. The first recorded match on the ground was in 1964, when the Essex Second XI played the Warwickshire Second XI in the Second XI Championship.

    3.2 km · cricket ground in Harlow, Essex, England · Wikipedia
  4. 04
    Harlow Civic Centre

    Harlow Civic Centre is a municipal building in Harlow, a town in Essex, in England. It is the offices and meeting place of Harlow District Council.

    3.4 km · municipal building in England · Wikipedia
  5. 05
    Gibberd Garden

    Gibberd Garden is a garden in Harlow, Essex, England, which was created by Sir Frederick Gibberd and his wife Patricia Gibberd. They designed the garden and added sculptures, ceramic pots, and architectural salvage from 1972 till his death in 1984.

    1.3 km · garden in Essex, UK · Wikipedia
  6. 06
    BMAT STEM Academy

    BMAT STEM Academy is a University Technical College within the Harlow College campus in Harlow, Essex, England, which opened in September 2014 as Sir Charles Kao UTC. It was named after the Nobel Prize winning scientist Charles K. Kao who worked and studied at Standard Telecommunication Laboratories in Harlow. The Academy is currently rated as "Good" in all areas by Ofsted following an inspection in January 2023.

    2.2 km · college in Essex, England · Wikipedia
  7. 07
    Harlow Marsh

    Harlow Marsh is a 13.8 hectare Local Nature Reserve in Harlow in Essex. It is owned and managed by Harlow District Council.

    2.2 km · park in United Kingdom · Wikipedia
  8. 08
    Contrapuntal Forms

    Contrapuntal Forms is a stone sculpture by Barbara Hepworth, one of her first public commissions, made in 1950–51 for the Festival of Britain and installed outside the Dome of Discovery on South Bank, London. It was one of two Hepworth commissions for the festival: the other was an abstract rotating sculpture, Turning Forms.

    1.7 km · sculpture by Barbara Hepworth · Wikipedia
  9. 09
    Church of Our Lady of Fatima

    Our Lady of Fatima's Church is a Roman Catholic parish church in Harlow, Essex, England. It was designed between 1953 and 1954 by Gerard Goalen and was one of the earliest churches in England where the design was influenced by the Liturgical Movement.

    1.9 km · Catholic church building in Harlow, Essex, England, UK · Wikipedia
  10. 10
    St Mary & St Hugh, Old Harlow

    St Mary & St Hugh's Church is a Church of England parish church in Churchgate Street, Old Harlow in Essex, England. The church is of medieval origin and was given Grade II listed status on 5 July 1950.

    800 m · church in Old Harlow, UK · Wikipedia

Ranked by the number of language editions of Wikipedia with an article on each, from Wikidata; the sentences are the openings of those articles, CC BY-SA 4.0.

See

What Wikivoyage says to see

Harlow Sculpture Collection (sited across the town). which includes works by Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth.

  1. 01
    Harlowbury Chapel

    Anglican church that was built around 1180.

  2. 02
    Gibberd Garden

    The Gibberd Garden, Marsh Ln, CM17 0NA (20 minute walk from centre).

  3. 03
    North Weald & District Minature Railway

    Harlow Garden Centre, Canes Lane, Hastingwood, CM17 9LD.

From Wikivoyage: Old Harlow, CC BY-SA 4.0. Not yet checked by us.

Do

Things to do

Walks in fields around Churchgate Street Walk along River Stortford, north to Sawbridgeworth, or south to join Lee Valley Walk

From Wikivoyage: Old Harlow, CC BY-SA 4.0. Not yet checked by us.

Eat

Where to eat

Apart from the pubs below, several cafes and restaurants in the High Street and in the town centre.

From Wikivoyage: Old Harlow, CC BY-SA 4.0. Not yet checked by us.

Go there

Getting to Old Harlow

Airports
London Stansted (STN), 13 km · London Luton (LTN), 36 km · London Heathrow (LHR), 54 km
Stations
Harlow Town railway station, 2.9 km · Sawbridgeworth railway station, 3.8 km · Harlow Mill railway station, 900 m
  • London → Old Harlow
    35 km · quickest by road, 1h 15m · £4–5
  • Birmingham, West Midlands → Old Harlow
    159 km · quickest by road, 2h 57m · £18–24
  • Nottingham, Leicestershire → Old Harlow
    157 km · quickest by road, 3h 1m · £18–24
  • From anywhere
    The planner compares every way there from wherever you are.
    Plan a trip

Road and air are today’s quick answer; timetabled trains, buses and ferries load on the results page from the operators’ feeds.

Not yet researched

No local-transport research exists yet for Old Harlow

Our researched notes are written from a sourced entry: every shared taxi, boat and village bus with its operator, its rule, its fare and the year we saw it, and what could not be confirmed. Nobody has done that work for Old Harlow. What is above is what we hold from open sources; nothing here pretends to be more.

What Wikivoyage says about moving around
  • Get inA low-cost minibus company, Stansted Transfer operates between London and Stansted Airport.

From Wikivoyage: Harlow, CC BY-SA. Not yet checked by us; that article was last edited 2026-04.

The nearest places where the work is done
  1. 01
    Isle of WightGB

    11 ways of moving, 22 sources

    158 km
  2. 02
    LundyGB

    7 ways of moving, 11 sources

    340 km
  3. 03
    VlielandNL

    10 ways of moving, 47 sources

    367 km
  4. 04
    Isle of ArranGB

    10 ways of moving, 31 sources

    546 km
  5. 05
    Tarbert, Loch Fyne and KintyreGB

    9 ways of moving, 15 sources

    581 km

If you know how people move in Old Harlow – the stand, the rule, the fare – tell us, and the note gets an entry.

Around it

Next door to Old Harlow

Old Harlow is 32 km from Islington, the nearest large city, whose note carries the wider picture.

  • Harlowtown in the west of Essex, England1.4 km
  • Sawbridgeworthtown and civil parish in Hertfordshire, England, UK3.6 km
  • Gilstonvillage and civil parish in East Hertfordshire, Hertfordshire, UK2.7 km
  • High Wychvillage and civil parish in Hertfordshire, England, UK3.1 km
  • Eastwickcivil parish in Hertfordshire, England3.9 km
  • Little Parndonsuburb of Harlow, Essex, United Kingdom3.7 km