Common as..

 One of the key tenets in the planning of the new town was a focus on community - for there to be both larger community centres such as Moot House and Tye Green Community Centre, and also smaller neighbourhood “common rooms” where more local get togethers such as coffee mornings or playgroups might take place without people having to travel a huge distance from home. My map from 1964 shows 12 of these dotted around the town and although some have been demolished and built over, many do still remain. 

Churchfields Common Room 

Some of the remaining rooms are still used for various “community” activities - the one above houses a martial arts club now, for example. 

Probably my favourite of those I have seen so far is this rather cute “prefab” style room at Glebelands - numbered 1 on my map and I suspect it may have been the first to be built. I’m not sure whether this one is still in regular use but it’s certainly beautifully cared for! 

Glebelands Common Room 

From the common rooms I have tracked down currently, one notable thing is how different they all are. From the tiny Glebelands one, we move on to the Ladyshot offering - rather larger and grander - and also these days with rather less windows than it was originally built with! (see here: HERE for how it looked when it was first built). 

Ladyshot Common Room with Ralph Brown sculpture

Now the long term home of the Harlow Amateur Boxing club, this is one venue that is in use pretty much 7 days a week, still, a albeit probably not for anything that Sir Frederick Gibberd might have expected! 

Halling Hill Common Room

Finally for this post, a style of building that seems almost more suited to somewhere on the Norfolk coast than a new town in Essex - this granite facing is commonly seen elsewhere in East Anglia. This one looks a little more neglected than most of the others I have seen so far - obviously damp and with quite an air of neglect. I wasn’t able to ascertain whether it is still used at all, or not. 

I also tried to track down one more of the Common rooms before posting this - my map shows one formerly in place at Pipers Hatch for Long Ley - however this appears to have been demolished when the new health centre at Sydenham House was built.