Harlow Town Railway Station
Harlow Town Railway Station
We provided heritage analysis and advice to an Options Study led by Weston Williamson + Partners, exploring how passenger experience, intermodal interchange and capacity could be enhanced at Harlow Town Railway Station, a Grade II listed building dating from 1960.
The building was the first railway station specifically designed for a New Town, opening in 1960 to serve the growing community of Harlow. It was designed by British Railways’ Eastern Region architects in a striking modernist style influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright and the Japanese Pavilion at the 1958 Brussels World's Fair. The station features dramatic oversailing eaves, horizontal emphasis with counterpointing lift towers, and well lit, mosaic-lined interiors.
The station is nationally significant as Britain’s first modernist railway station, embodying post-war optimism and the ideals of the New Town movement. However, the inevitable incremental alterations and additions have diminished the spatial and material clarity of the original design.
In response to the creation of the Harlow & Gilston Garden Town - a unique partnership between five Local Authorities - the station is expected to serve 16,000 new homes within a decade in four new Garden Town neighbourhoods (including Gilston).
The Study explored numerous options for expanding the station to accommodate this growth and improve access by foot, bicycle and bus. A central tenet of the study was to recover the original architectural clarity of the station, which would both celebrate its pioneering architecture and improve the passenger experience and wayfinding. Options for a new northern entrance continued the bold forms and rhythms of the 1960 design, reinforcing its identity and presence.
Client: Harlow & Gilston Garden Town
Architect: Weston Williamson + Partners