Past and present...

 

Source: Harlow.gov.U.K. 

Source: Round about Harlow 

The Stow was Harlow New Town’s first “Neighbourhood centre” - areas designed into the town plan to ensure that each neighbourhood had shops sufficient to suit a family’s needs for day to day living, a Pub, post office, chemist, library and a bank. There was also a Health Centre close by providing in most cases Doctors and Dentists services.  Serving the town’s first residential areas of Mark Hall North & South and Netteswell, initially it was the “town centre” for those moving in, but as the town began to increase in size focus switched to The High and Stone Cross. 

A look through the list of shops at The Stow soon after it was built reveals some familiar names - Boots the Chemist has been there since the early days, for example, as has Dorringtons Bakers. “Big names” of the time include Freeman, Hardy & Willis (footwear), Sketchley (dry cleaners) & W.H.Smith & Sons (newsagents). In 1964 The Stow had 3 different butchers, 2 greengrocers, 2 bakers and no fewer than 7 general grocers - just imagine that, these days! This is a time that predates people’s heavy reliance on supermarkets as we know them now of course - indeed the closest Harlow had at the time were the Co-Operative society stores - still in evidence in some of the other neighbourhood centres although long gone from The Stow.

Source: Information board within The Stow today

Originally the area was not pedestrianised as the photographs above show - perhaps strange considering that one of the main features of the town plan for The High was the complete lack of cars within the central area. 

Source: www.photozone72.org.uk 

Now, things look rather different. No cars, but instead trees and flower beds which oddly serve to make the space feel smaller than the 1950’s appearance above would suggest. Boots and Dorringtons remain, but we have no butchers, no greengrocers, no bank and a library which is open so rarely as to make it sadly impractical for use by many working locals.  Two convenience stores are used mainly for the odd items that people failed to pick up on their main shopping trips - with Aldi just around the corner being the prime location for many of those. 

I plan to return to some form of regular posting here - in the first instance with some more of these “past & present” posts recreating old photos with views taken from similar locations today, to show how much things have changed - or not. Please do pop back and check for new posts, and thank you for reading.