Sculpture Town

Susan Brewer takes a tour of Harlow’s exceptional collection of public artworks

- Susan Brewer

In 2010, Harlow in Essex became rebranded “Sculpture Town”. With its growing collection of sculptures scattered around the town, it is certainly worthy of its name. Among them are works by Henry Moore, Auguste Rodin and Barbara Hepworth, and to make it even more interesting the sculptures are not just located in the town centre but can be found in shopping precincts, housing estates, green spaces and the town park.

Some of the works are small, maybe set into a wall or against a building, while others are enormous pieces sited on grassy hillocks where they can’t fail to catch the eye of passing pedestrians or motorists. Perhaps out of all the sculptures, the Henry Moore piece Family Group is the most well-known.

When this sculpture was installed, it had a special significance for the town, representing as it did family stability. Harlow was one of the new towns commissioned under the New Towns Act 1946, which was initially intended to help families, especially those from London, to move from the war-torn city where they were often living in poor conditions. Sometimes, people were crowded into properties without electric lights or indoor sanitation.

Other new towns planned at the same time included Welwyn Garden City, Stevenage and Basildon. In fact, when I was a child, my family moved from a one-bedroom flat in London with no bathroom, and an outdoor lavatory shared by eight people, to a new house in Welwyn Garden City, surrounded by trees and flowers. Our lives were transformed.