The Stuff We Can't Fit In Somewhere Else in Harlow, Essex*

The things which can't be categorised

You can tell us more about Harlow.

• I was a regular in the orange footman in 1980 and can remember the girl for NZ I phoned her when she returned home to NZ
• Re the comment on the murder rate in Harlow: 6 murders (half a dozen) is way way way below the average murder rate per of the whole country. The national murder rate for the U.K. is 1.17 per hundred thousand of population. That means Harlow would have to have 1.67 murders a year to be at the national murder rate. 6 murders in 10 years puts it way below that at 0.6 murders a year (that's not even one a year) That means the national murder rate is 277% higher than it is in Harlow. Harlow is rough and ready, but it does NOT have a high murder rate. I am the bloke that moved from London to Harlow to Germany to Harlow to Wellingborough to Harlow, to Germany to New York to North Carolina. There are lots of worse places, much worse, than Harlow.
• Look, unless you really don't have a choice, don't move here. It's a lousy eyesore of a town with a high proportion of druggies, pissheads, immigrants and meatheads with very limited intelligence. Violence here is rife, and murders have become more common over the past ten years. It's been at least half a dozen, and Harlow is not a big place. I've lived here twice in the past 10 years, and not out of choice, I'm out of here soon for good, I won't miss it.
• I love Harlow and I hate it. I moved from London at the age of 8 and lived there for a couple fo years moving on to Germany, back to Harlow, to Wellingborough (which is a shitty East Midlands town and is just as rough) back to Harlow after about 5 years, then Germany for quite a few years, then New York and now North Carolina. I still love Harlow, despite all its faults.
• Whenever I am forced to visit Harlow, I get off the train and sit in the Town Park where I have a cigarette. Most parks are characterised by the sweet sounds of birdsong and children at play - but not Harlow's Town Park, where one's ears will be assaulted by the hiss of dump valves on badly-tuned Vauxhall Novas and enraged Staffordshire bull terriers. If Harlow had existed during the 1940s and had been bombed into oblivion by the Luftwaffe, many historians believe that scenes of terrible devastation would have been prevented. Harlow is a town with around 70,000 residents - yet it has no art galleries...it does have four McDonalds, though.
• I feel I must give a mention to staple tye. In the early 90s it was destroyed and rebuilt as the old complex had concrete cancer. Whilst most people seem to prefer the new complex, I myself think the old site was better. The old site seemed to have more character. It combined flats and shops on the same site. It seemed to have a bigger variety of shops and boasted a pub.
• HOW ABOUT THE FIRST PLACE YOU HAD NOOKIE?
• the town park in the summer is amazing! cool bands play on the stage too. the park is HUGE, you can get easyly lost. all the better when your with someone to get lost with ;)
• go and watch sleeping beauty at the victoria hall in old harlow, from 8th till 17th of dec, its well worth a watch!
• One thing I must ask before I explode with anger is why do loads of ignorant people keep making comments about single mums in Harlow? Apparently there are loads and that they ruin Harlow. Well maybe if the Harlow studs didn't keep their brains in their trousers all the single mums wouldn't exist!!!!!
• One thing I must ask before I explode with anger is why do loads of ignorant people keep making comments about single mums in Harlow? Apparently there are loads and they ruin Harlow. Well maybe if the Harlow studs didn't keep their brains in their trousers all the single mums wouldn't exist!!!!!
• o yeah, dat dudes house, mmmmmmmm james smith thats it. its the ultimate place for gay parties and gang bangs.
• GET OUT OF HARLOW, IT IS WRONG
• Where on earth am I going to find a decent flat in Harlow???
• I've lived in Harlow for 4 years and have some great memories. The locals are the salt of the earth. People in Essex always get a bad time of it (I'm from Devon) because they are close to London and London is where the media is. Surrey, Sussex etc are full of bland, middleclass commuters who don't provide ready material for humour. Everyone needs someone else to look down on. You get drunken teenagers and scrubbers everywhere and Harlow is no exception. I just wish the fuckwit council would stop developers building expensive, characterless, low-density (the same as everywhere else in the country) housing estates like Church Langley. They make bus travel impractical as it takes too long for the bus to round the whole estates, they promote car use and they have little or no amenities (expect a fucking great Tesco or shitty Family Pub). THERE.
• I went to "Ringlets" once in 1989 and thought this is quite good only to find it burnt down the next week and then was demolished with the rest of Staple Tye.
• There are too many ginger people here - they are repulsive
• Harlow has many cycle paths both in the town and surrounding areas, great for those who are environmentally friendly and go about by bike. The local bus service is fairly reliable, the number ten from Chruch Langley to the railway station via the town goes every 15 minutes during the day.
• We've got a good museum and did I mention the sculptures?
• dangerous townie hotspots____ BY the market
• Harlow is inspiring - even if its just to do well in order to leave. However, I keep coming back and have never met such fantastic people, who don't really care if they are slagged off by others who don't have a clue what its like to live here.
• Is it me or are all of the residents of staple tye are incredibly ugly is it because they are all in bred.
• ok, sum1 said that there was a woolies in harlow that no longer sold classical cd's - there is a reason for this.. there is no woolworths in harlow, lived there long enough to know that one!!
• Full of "hard with thier mates but wimps on thier own" kids that arent worth peeing on if they were on fire
• WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
• I have never met anyone who has liked Harlow. Everyone has hated it. The people reviewing Harlow who like it and are in Harlow have obviously never taken a look elsewhere. It is amazing to have seen the illiteracy levels first hand, it made me sick! The routine of 14 year olds gettng pregnant, gangs roaming the street every night looking to cause trouble etc. would be too much for anyone. DO NOT EVER SET FOOT IN THIS TOWN IT IS NOT WORTH ANY OF THE BOTHER.
• If in doubt - don't ask, the new town is a complete sh*t hole but the old town is nice.
• What a fantastic web-site, I really know where my life is going now. I wasn't looking for 'anywhere' in particular and happened to find 'knowhere' in Harlow. Please can someone tell me about 'somewhere' in Harlow?
• The bullying here is so bad, the 'popular' people think they rule the place and throw bottles, bricks, etc at the 'GREEBOS'. I hate it here. Also there are loads of dance classes such as Makin Steps, Brenda Taylor, Harlow Ballet, Karen Chapmen, etc. Mark Hall is meant to be the best school so I don't even want to think of how bad other schools must be. The lessons at school are ok but you can't go to school for one day without being abused or insulted in one way or another. We have rapists, bullys, thugs, etc here and nothing gets down about them, they just get ignored.
• poached eels bubble and squeek
• There doesn't seem to be any 'theatre' entry space, so I'll add here that The Playhouse is much improved and is fast becoming one of the top theatres in the South East - if you haven't been since it reopened four years ago, give it another chance and check it out now! Also, pretty good bar and cafe facilities.
• Poo plop wee bum
• Only people who live here are the elderly and single mothers of the world. Everybody else had the sense to move. Quick escape now before it's too late.....
• If you have kids and are thinking of moving to our town remember,that parks and swings are the first things to disapear when they run out of money(too many fact finding missions to america e.t.c)so bring your own!
• Keeping fit can be cool. Check out Harlow Running Club's website at www.thehrc.org.uk. er, they also like a few bevies.
• i would like to add this although im sure every town has this problem and that problem is "NIGHT CLUB BOUNCERS", why do they think they are so special?? oh and sorry but the go kart track has gone now!!!!!
• DJ Franky known as Frank O'Hare.. Why can no one meet him anymore.. Is he too famous for his own good??
• Puffers Green used to be known as Perverts Green!
• There are Three Dance Schools in the Town, Makin Steps School of Dance, The Brenda Taylor School of Dance and The Harlow Ballet Association.
• I think that most of the people who have supplied the info so far must be rather young and limited in their experiences. I am not young, have lived in other places (I now live in Harlow), work in London, and regularly travel to other parts of the UK.
  Harlow appears to be a quiet place unless you know where to look. Most sports are catered for, other leisure amenities are very well catered for (the town park is a good example), and the shopping facilities provide for most needs.
  Because Harlow looks to cater for local communities, some of these facilities are not easy to find unless you are part of that community. This can lead to a spartan look to outsiders who are not prepared to look.
  Graffiti has been mentioned. It is very noticeable that there is less graffiti in Harlow than most other towns of the same size or larger. When it does appear, Harlow council are very quick to clean it off.
  The worst thing about Harlow is the image given to it by people who do not live there, who have nothing to compare it with, or who have a very narrow view of life.
• The only good thing to come out of Harlow as far as I am aware has been the band Collapsed Lung ( the name says it all). However, the second hand camera stall on the Monday market is worth a look.
• I spent a lovely three months in Harlow many years ago when I was 20. It was back in 1980 and maybe there is nothing to do now but when I was over there on holiday from New Zealand I had a ball. I worked in a pub that was then called "The Orange Footman" and it seemed to be party party party all of the time. I knew lots of really nice guys, worked in what I thought was a happening pub and had a lovely holiday. Britain is not a place I would want to live all of my life because of the temperature and I think that Britain is into the pub scene whereas in NZ we are more into the beach and barbeques which is better when you have a family. But don't put down Harlow because I have many fond memories of the place and the people who lived there when I was there. By the way graffiti is a world wide thing and Auckland where I live is pretty bad.
• It was a crime when the Sainsburys went up by the sportcentre. that was the best chance the council had to improve the towns facilities. There was room to expand the current sportscentre and also add a much needed bowling alley and ice rink,this would have created budding sports stars instead of graffitti artists. What did we get instead, a shop thats really too small, just enough parking,extra congestion where it was least needed and another roundabout!!! The football club was nearly driven from the town, the American Football team was driven out and the rugby club, despite its successes is stuck on a ground were it cannot expand. The town could do with a succesful team to get behind, the council should foster this where attitude whenever it can. Now thats of my chest, the pubs are good, public transport aint bad. I lived in Harlow a long time and would move back if circumstances permitted. Who mentioned the Orange Footman pub? Sadly thats been bulldozed to make way for some shops. They should have auctioned of some of the interior for the nostalgic types!
• Easy to slag it off, but as someone who went to school there (many years ago) and now lives nearby, it's got a lot going for it.
• Best place to meet a man whose idea of originality is a white and blue checked Ben Sherman shirt (as opposed to a blue and white one) who has one GCSE in CDT and thinks you should be impressed by his mating cry of "nice Bristols" - Every pub in Harlow.
• I've recently moved away from Harlow, although my parents are still there, and I can safely say that I'm glad I got out! There are not many people that I know who actually like living there. I think the worst thing about Harlow is the mentality of the people living there. It's one of a kind. If you're thinking of working there don't get involved in any sort of customer service work!
• The Orange Footman was burnt down during the mid-80's, and replaced by 'Ringletts', which used to be a good laugh when you were 17. The whole area has now been pulled down and replaced by a 'lower concrete content' Staple Tye shopping centre.
• Well, there's no market on Monday or Wednesday, although on Monday the market stalls are rented out to anybody who wants a stall to sell whatever they want. A bit like a car boot sale without the cars really. The worst thing about it is the fact that there are loads of little groups of Essex girls walking about who are aged about 10 and they try and pretend that they're much older and they are VERY annoying to say the least. There is basically nothing to do in Harlow. Unfortunately there ARE no good points about the place so that's all the info I can tell you!
• But Stuart East writes: "I was disappointed to see that somebody could not find any good points to say about Harlow. I lived there for 19 years and it was really good. There are good pubs such as the Willow Beauty for students or the White Horse for old people and a friendly atmosphere. The Square has had some really good bands play live. There are lots of fab places to eat, my favourite is the Little Chef on the A414. The best clothes shop has to be Littlewoods."
• And, yet another view: "BEST: Shark, Willow Beauty, Plume of Feather [pubs]. Square [venue and good place to drink when nothing's on -- not too packed]. Town Square on a summer's evening is a great place to sit and watch the sunset. It also has the highest number per capita of sculptures of any town in the UK. WORST: Employment prospects, underaged teenagers who think they're 19 etc... It also has the highest number of graffitied sculptures per capita of any town in the UK."
• There's an indoor karting track which is brilliant. To get there drive from Gan to Burger King, straight on at that roundabout, and take a left at the next one. It's about half a mile down the road in a massive warehouse.
• The best clothes shop is not Littlewoods... unless your'e 89 years old... there is River Island, Next, and loads of other nice clothes shops which I can't remember the names coz I havent been there for over two years. Don't slag off Harlow, coz I was brought up there, and now that I don't live in England anymore, I really miss it, and think that it's one of the nicest towns in England.

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Last updated: 2012-01-24