The Knowhere Guide

Best and Worst in Harlow, Essex*

Harlow, Essex Triumphs and Tragedies

Favourite Building

• The Green Bridge over the train track & marsh by the station
• The old staple tye shopping centre,but the buggers tore it down,sixties concrete lives on in our minds...
• The Swimming Pool The Summer House in Felmongers (if its still there) Gilbey Vitners in the town centre (gone now to make way for that supermarket) BP House The Railway Station
• The Halifax, many a good time was wasted there.
• Milwards estate. A fine example of post-modernist architectural feng-shui. Simply charming residents. Well worth a visit.
• The Clocktower, as in the Clocktower roundabout near Nortel's.
• Old Harlows pretty
• The new SmithKline Beecham one on 3rd Avenue...or the Nortel one
• Greyhound Pub

Demolish It Now Building

• The WHOLE BLOODY LOT along with the Council and the pillocks that vote them in
• Town Hall. Joseph Rank House. SmithKline Beecham building, eating up the pinnacles - looks like the emerald city. Maybe Fourth Avenue should be paved with yellow bricks.
• The three storey houses in Orchard Croft, the ones that face onto the green. Now grade two listed for their 'architectral beauty'? Harlow Odeon, for not allowing wheelchair users.
• The Jean Harlow looks like some has repeatedly vomited all over it and they probably have
• Demolish Harlow completely. Please. It is the most horrible, bleak, depressing, litter-strewn, smelly, grey and awful place I have ever been in my life. Get rid of all the horrible lumps of metal posing as sculpture, and the hideous high-rise tower blocks, and the appalling lumps of concrete that were (for some unfathomable reason) considered fit for habitation. Where did I leave that nuclear bomb...?!
• the jean harlow public house,It smells and the same pisshead/junkies occupy it all year round,which is a shame because it could become another Macdonalds.
• PLEASE PLEASE SOMEONE,,please blow the whole freakin place up ,,,,
• Semours Harlow...Why, cos I used to date a girl there
• MFI - ghastly
• Town Hall (complete with loony-left councillors)
• Harlow College is so much in the red, it's unbelievable!! It is completely mis-managed and has it's priorities the wrong way round! The staff are friendly, but their hands are tied when it comes to the arrangement and management of courses. It really is a business now, not an educational institute.
• New Longmans building,the new SmithKlineBeecham building and the railway station.Somehow the railway station won awards for its Gibberd design.That was a long time ago and I suppose it looked modern then, it just looks dated and shabby now! The 2 new building I mention are cunningly designed to look like the same as the crappy old ones that were built in the sixties in Harlow.Something more inspiring would have been nice.While i'm on the subject that Sainsbury built next to the sportscentre should also be pulled down and replaced with a better sportcentre,bowling alley and ice rink.
• The Town Hall. The writing's been on the wall for years and the writing says "Wots the council doin' wiv my money?"
• The town hall is quite ugly but so is most of Harlow
• The tower blocks and the town hall tower monstrosities

The Best Things

• All roads that lead out of it.
• Good friends..... I have made some good friends, people are quite libral here. More than they used to be. Labour strong hold...!
• Going to London to find out that Harlow really isn't that bad.
• The Town park is very pretty - but only because they didn't ruin that by putting concrete lego blocks all over it. Other than that, it's hard to think of a single likeable thing about the place...
• the best things are all around the outside of the town. although there are some nice girls there(we have tourists).
• everything,everyone moans but do they leave NO.... and if they do they come back or say how much they miss it(trust me they do)so all you harlow people stop putting it down remember its the people who make the town !!
• DJ Franky actually coming back to Halrow to perform a gig
• There was a fab mural in the Technical college by John Piper. I believe the college has been demolished (?) so what happened to the mural? The London Plain tree and the Elephant climbing frame in Mark Hall Park. The Slide (longest one at its time) in Pennymead. The cycle tracks All the fifties housing schemes The Lawn and the Banana Block The Fire and Ambulance Station in Mullberry Green The Clock in the Town Centre Many of the Towns Sculptures The roof on Burnt Mill Schools Hall The fact that the industrial estates were built away from the town
• The Skateboarders and Punks.
• The best thinks about Harlow..???? every thing. I grew up there in the 60's. i now live on the otherside of the World...I can remember all the good things and bad things...But i choose not to remember them bad old things...Harlow was and still is special to me.! My first love lived there. "Margaret" Her dad was the lock keeper, All my best memories are in Harlow and i could not nock the place for quids...even after 30 years of being away....
• Without doubt one of the best things in Harlow is the HSO - Harlow Symphony Orchestra. Members meet every Tuesday evening at Tanys Dell School to rehearse music from the symphonic repertoire. They perform in some great venues including , most recently, Ely Cathedral. I would be pleased to hear from any players who might be interested in joining the orchestra. Next concert: March 7th at Bishop's Stortford College.
• Good cycle track network,a bit of maintenance would improve it no end. More tracks would ease congestion on the roads, if only more of the tracks linked up.Mopeds should also be allowed to use them again!
• It's handy for London, Stansted and road connections, it hasn't got a 'Hertfordshire' attitude like some of it's neighbouring towns and everybody knows everybody.
• That for a large town , it has a villiage mentality, everyone knows everyone or is related to them, esp. by marriage, ( maybe second or third marriages have something to do with this, us baby boomers must do SOMETHING.
• The Pubs Blokes The Square The Cinema

The Worst Things

• Harlow is like a crappy midlands town transplanted in Essex.
• The STUPID LITTLE MORONS on scooters who think they own the roads/paths and anywhere else they can "ride". The Council who are great believers in wasting others money. The idiots who think its fun to damage your car on the way home from the pub. Bring your kids here to learn all the bad language (just stand next to the mothers at the school gates)
• Some tossers in the town, it only takes a handfull to ruin it
• Everything.
• the town is full of complete mingers, Ugly capital of the world, Far to many foul mouthed single mums, hideous dress sense ("loafers", like HELLO!!)
• The Labour Council, who charge a whopping great amount of council tax for very little benefit. Oh and the idiotic fools who vote them in again and again and again - the education system is clearly rubbish as well or these people would surely have more sense.
• The local council's apathy approach to youth is still going strong for all these years, It rekindles warm memories in me to see kids getting kicks out of doing nothing constructive and having nowhere to go(my weakly funded youth centre is now a chinese community centre) So they COULD learn chinese i suppose?
• the whole place ,, demolish it and start again,,
• sorry to say this but we do get called the single mother capital!!
• Any original Harlow house that has fake elizabethan windows fitted in The Harvey Centre Church Langley - landed from out of space I think Who the hell thought it was a good idea to have the railway station away from the town centre? The Greyhound Pub - great in its day but what a mess now
• New Bus Lanes/Roadworks Harlow Council Cock up
• Rollerbladers and the Millions and Millions of trendies. Swarms of 'em.
• Too many roundabouts, you pass through once a month and there is another 'pimple' in the middle of the road. They are getting so close together now the traffic just queues from one to the next.
• I was brought up in Harlow, I moved away, I moved back. I made a BIG mistake. It has about as much class as as knitted toilet roll holder sitting on a doliy in a bathroom with a runched peach shower curtain in a house with a musical doorbell.
• Everybody knows everybody! there's some scummy people who have moved in to the area to take advantage of the council's leanient welfare policies. Some of the houses were designed on a 'Friday afternoon'.
• That everyone knows everone and youu can't do anything without everyone knowing !

The Knowhere Guide started out as a list of places to skateboard in the UK. It is a compilation of (unedited) information and views supplied by users like yourself. It is not a conventional tourist guide!

In most cases, the information in each section has been submitted by more than one contributor (the credits at the bottom of the page list some, but not all, of the contributors) and some of it dates back to the 1970s.

We make no claims as to the accuracy of the information in the Guide - our only purpose is to provide a forum for users to share their knowledge and opinions. So please keep a large bag of salt handy and be prepared to read between the lines!

If you disagree with a comment, or information is out of date, please submit an update! The contributors come from all walks of life, and their opinions are bound to be subjective, so if your view isn't represented, please speak up and contribute to the balance of the Guide. See below in the 'Have Your Say' section for how to add your voice.

If we have helped you out or made you laugh you can buy us a pint.

Have Your Say...

You can tell us more about Harlow. This is also the method to use if you want to correct some of the information already here. (But please remember you're not mailing the person who actually wrote whatever-it-is.)

You can use the add an event form to tell us about events happening in Harlow.

Or, if you'd just like to leave a message for other users of this site, take a look at The Knowhere Board (handy if you're just trying to get in touch with someone).

Credits

Last updated: 2007-08-09