Harlow takes its name either from the Anglo-Saxon words 'here' and 'hlaw', meaning "army hill", probably to be identified with Mulberry Green in Old Harlow, which was used as the moot or meeting place for the district. Harlowbury Chapel still survives there today, dating from 1180.
Or the name Harlow comes from a the Saxon words 'here' and 'hearg', meaning "temple hill/mound", to be identified with an Iron Age burial mound, later a Roman temple site on River Way.
Harlow Temple in the midst of industrial units.
800 metres from Hariow Mill Lock, this site is an amazing discovery. Now surrounded by modern industrial units, this little oasis of calm still exists today and is freely accessible with some information boards surrounding it.
Astoundingly there is evidence that a Mesolithic hunter-gatherer encampment existed here as far back as 5000 BC! A Bronze Age Pond Barrow by 2000BC, a Celtic temple at 200BC, Roman Temple 80AD, and finally a Saxon temple by 500AD.
The Mill
Sited to the left of the lock where an old sluice gate is still in position, this is a mill-site with records that date from before the Noman invasion (1066).
In 1041 a grant is recorded to have been made for a mill to be built, by Thurstan, a Saxon Thane to the abbot of St Edmundsbury (Bury St. Edmunds). A Thane is a freeman granted land in return for military service, ranked higher than a freeman but lower than a nobleman.
The mill operated mainly as a corn-grinding mill until 1926 and eventually burnt down in 1938.
The Lock
One of only two locks on the Stort built straight into brick in 1769, beacuse the chamber was too deep and the mill too close to rely on a turf-sided lock. A timber-framed lock-house was built in 1803, but demolished in the 1960s.
2008 sculpture "The Flowing River" by Antony Lycycia can be found on the eastern side of the lock chamber.
"The Flowing River" by Antony Lycycia.