Harlow, with the parishes of Netteswell, Latton, Great Parndon and Little Parndon, was designated a new town in 1947 to relieve over-crowding in north-east London. Of all the new towns around London, Harlow had the smallest existing population, and by leaving the existing village of Harlow, subsequently renamed Old Harlow, as an outlying neighbourhood, the architect-planner (Sir) Frederick Gibberd (1908-1984) had an unusually free hand in his master-plan, which was approved by government in 1949. Gibbered was also unusual among the new town master-planners in continuing as a consultant throughout the history of its construction until Harlow Development Corporation was wound down in 1980. His master-plan comprised four main residential areas or ‘clusters’ situated on high ground and separated by deep wedges of open country, all set around a new town centre (the High) on the highest central point at Dad’s Wood (the only major woodland to be wholly lost). The wedges of open land were designed to accommodate the main roads into the town centre along with secondary schools, playing fields, the town park in the north and a golf course in the north-west. In the early new towns responsibility for parks and recreational buildings fell to the local authorities, whose relative shortage of money and, in many cases, resistance to the new towns themselves, meant that their laying out was delayed until the development corporations could offer grants or help in kind under the New Towns Act of 1959. The slow development of Harlow Town Park is typical of what happened in the new towns in these circumstances.
Gibberd produced a master plan in August 1947, to which he made small revisions and added detail in 1952. The landscape architect Sylvia Crowe (1901-1997) was appointed to detail the landscape across the town in 1948, and served as a consultant until 1974. Crowe was one of Britain’s distinguished landscape architects and designed landscapes for hospitals, power stations and reservoirs including Rutland Water and assisted with the gardens at the new towns of Harlow and Basildon. Sylvia was concerned that new developments such as roads were being landscaped by non-specialists. She thought that the standard of landscape relative to housing was poor in this country and set out to improve things. She was president of the Institute of Landscape Architects, now the Landscape Institute, from 1957-1959; and in 1967 Sylvia was awarded the Commander of the Order of the British Empire, the CBE, and was made Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, DBE, in 1973. In 1949, Gibberd proposed creating a lake by the River Stort, but the slope of the valley and poor gravels made this proposal too expensive and it was abandoned in 1950. Gibbered produced a more comprehensive report and plan in September 1953, outlining a park to serve the elderly, grown-ups, adolescents and children. He stated that the park ‘must not be regarded as an active sports area but an amenity in the nature of St James’s Park, London. A contrast between open grasslands and intimate areas such as ponds and gardens was the objective’. At this stage no attempt had been made to define all the functions of the park, with some remaining conjectural and perhaps even unknown. Sites, however, were suggested for a swimming pool, an open-air theatre in the gravel pit by Netteswell House and a hotel at the junction between First and Fifth Avenues, while a restaurant, café, dancing arena and look-out were proposed for the south side of the park. It was proposed to treat the existing road as a gravel avenue. Only the swimming pool, however, was realised according to this first plan, and this was demolished in 2004. Recognising that the variety of wetlands, heath and arid ground would require different landscape treatments, Gibberd planned open ground to the west on the high ground by Fifth Avenue, a pitch-and-putt course with parking and woodland (the existing Marshgate Spring Wood) to the east, and boating and fishing by the river. He also sought to include Terlings, a house occupied by the development corporation, on the north side of the river, where he proposed a botanic garden. Sports facilities were to be given their own area outside the park, planned on the west side of Fifth Avenue, where a pioneering indoor sports centre opened in 1964 (all replaced by housing in 2004). As the existing wooded valleys were seen to be the 'most intricate and varied features of the landscape', Gibbered ensured that they were left in their natural state 'for the old to enjoy for their own sake, families to picnic in and the young to explore'. Unlike conventional municipal parks, Gibberd also planned for the park to have no hard boundaries, so that it would not be shut off from its surroundings, while the hamlet of Netteswell Cross was incorporated into the design to ensure 'that there would be life in the park at all times'.
It was agreed that the design for the Town Park would be made by Gibberd and Sylvia Crowe and then leased to Epping Rural District Council (becoming Harlow Urban District Council in 1955) for maintenance. After the first section of land was acquired by the development corporation in 1956, the Welsh landscape architect John St Bodfan Grufydd (1910-2004) supervised the infilling of the gravel pits and the early clearance of the site in 1956-1957. Gruffydd, who was born at Plas Eryr in Snowdonia, achieved recognition when in 1945 he was asked by David Lloyd George to design a garden in memory of his wife. He served as a consultant to Harlow Development Corporation in 1953-1957 and also worked at Crawley, until in 1961 he turned mainly to teaching. He established a course in landscape architecture at Cheltenham (now University of Gloucestershire) while maintaining a small practice that gave his students practical experience. He worked on programmes for the rivers Thames and Mole as part of schemes to improve waterways in urban areas, and on parks at Orwell and Shrublands in Suffolk, and Stonor in Oxfordshire. A late work was the landscape at Robinson College, Cambridge University, in 1984-1985. He was President of the Institute for Landscape Architects (now the Landscape Institute) from 1969-1971.
In 1959, however, Harlow Urban District Council, under its engineer and surveyor, AWR Webb, took over, with Gibberd approving his designs and a Miss Willis at the development corporation advising on the planting. The northern area of the park continued to be farmed until late 1956 when it was bisected by the construction of Edinburgh Way parallel to the railway line to its north. The first area to be landscaped was to the east of School Lane, including Marshgate Spring Wood, where undergrowth was cleared and Marshgate Farm was landscaped and re-seeded. New planting was described in June 1956 by the chief officer, Ben Hyde Harvey, as small islands of trees, planting in the waste land to screen the railway, and more significant tree clumps to define ‘the future scenery of the park’. Paths were graded in March 1957 so they could be negotiated by prams and the first areas were opened between April and June that year. In the same year an area of native woodland, which had established itself on the site of a former C17 gravel pit, was incorporated into the park. It was named Peace Wood in 1997 to commemorate the end of the Cold War.
In 1959 some 83 acres (33.59 ha) of the park was passed to the district council, which was formally responsible for its realisation, though the development corporation continued to provide financial assistance on condition that it approved all the designs for the landscape and buildings. More land was added to the south of Park Lane in 1964, with the Water Garden (laid out on the site of water cress beds), Rhododendron Dell and a paddling pool being created shortly afterwards. A sculpture specially commissioned for the paddling pool, known as ‘Two Children on a Rock’ by Hilary Few, was removed in 2007 after being badly vandalised and replaced by a new piece entitled ‘Shoal’ by Will Spankie in 2009.
In 1965 a small estate centred around Spurriers House, which was built around 1868 by William Cox, a solicitor and former MP for Finsbury, London, was purchased by the council to form Spurriers Core, a civic entertainment area centred round a petting zoo known as Pets’ Corner. In the same year a prospect mound known as Lookout Hill, created from the tipping of construction material from the building of the new town, opened in the park's south-west section.
Further land was added to the north of Edinburgh Way in 1971 and a final 21 acres completing an extensive river walk in 1988. The plan originally extended to the swimming baths, an integral part of the park built to the south-east of the paddling pool on First Avenue in 1961, but this was replaced by housing in 2004-2005. The restaurants, hotels and other buildings proposed by Gibberd were not realised and the southern fringes of the park have now been developed with housing. A small group of homes has also been added to the east of Marshgate Farmhouse, within the park at the north end of Netteswell Cross, a site originally identified for housing by Gibberd.
In 1971 a single-story extension was added to Spurriers House to provide additional space for the Town Museum along with a drinks dispensary. Two years later the Museum was moved and a further extension was constructed against the east stable block to create a much larger café. In the same year a bandstand was constructed to the east of Spurriers House, nestled into the side of a shallow slope, while a toilet block, named the Greyhound Toilets after the neighbouring pub, was built adjacent to the Netteswell Cross car park.
A sculpture entitled 'Pisces' by Jesse Watkins (1899-1980) was installed in the Water Garden in 1973 after it was found to be too large to be exhibited at Watkins's retrospective of sculpture, paintings and graphics at the town's newly-opened Playhouse. As the piece fitted the garden so well it was acquired by Harlow Arts Trust and retained.
In the 1960s and 70s, the park became home to a popular roller rink which eventually fell into disrepair. Petitions for the construction of a new skate park were presented in the 1980s by local skateboarders and skateboard retailers, resulting in the opening of a temporary skate park in the 1990s. It was replaced by a permanent facility which opened in the park's south-east corner in 2008.
A Scented Garden for the Blind opened in 1984 on the east side of the access lane leading northwards from the Spurriers Lodge entrance at Netteswell Cross. Originally planted with roses, it was replanted in 2015 with planting and garden furniture designed to help develop and stimulate senses through touch, sight, scent, taste and hearing and renamed the Sensory Garden.
In 1997, the Newfoundland Garden was laid out to celebrate both the 50th anniversary of Harlow New Town and the 500th anniversary of the discovery of Newfoundland, Canada, to which Harlow is twinned. Dr (later Lord) Stephen Taylor, a leading member of the development corporation, later taught in Newfoundland and helped to secure the twinning. It was planted with trees and shrubs native to Newfoundland.
In 2012 Harlow Council received a grant of £1.83m from the Heritage Lottery Fund (now the National Lottery Heritage Fund) and the Big Lottery Fund, enabling a £2.8m restoration programme. Completed in 2016 by Kaner Olette Architects and Allen Scott Landscape Architecture, the work involved the restoration of Spurriers House, including the demolition of the late-C20 extensions, and the refurbishment of Pets' Corner, including the addition of an education venue (the Learning Centre) an events building (the Events Barn). The bandstand was re-roofed and extended with the addition of backstage facilities, while restoration work was undertaken to the Specimen Garden, the Water Garden, Rhododendron Dell, the Cherry Orchard and Lookout Hill.
In 2018 plans were put forward to replace the paddling pools with splash pads, but this had still not been implemented by January 2020.