Conservation Areas in Harborough district - Great Bowden Conservation Area

Great Bowden is the original settlement in whose parish the town of Market Harborough was laid out and developed. The village has retained a distinct non-urban character and physical separation from its larger neighbouring offspring; the two were formally separated in 1995 when Great Bowden became a separate civil parish. The railway line where it passes under the road from Great Bowden to Market Harborough marks the division of the two settlements. The distinctive plan of the earlier village remains and it is this area that forms the Conservation Area. 

The Conservation Area extends for over 1.2km. embracing most of the older buildings of the settlement; it has irregular boundaries and is in two broad parts, east and west, on either side of the railway line. The original sinuous main street was diverted to cross the line by a bridge. The eastern part has the functional core of the settlement (Church, School, Village Hall, Shops, Public Houses) but the distinctive settlement pattern in both parts is similar. It consists of a network of greens and of open spaces crossed by roads with many older buildings set back from the roads and behind the greens or former edges of the greens. The large number of trees, in the churchyard and on the greens and along the roads, is a characteristic of the settlement.

The fragmentation and irregular shape of the greens results in many different angles to the rows and groups of houses, and in many intimate areas within the whole. Although the whole area is large and extensive it is this breaking up into many small intimate areas that gives Great Bowden its character. Throughout the village there has been infill development between and on former greens during the last two centuries. This gives a mosaic of buildings of different ages. A notable feature is the number of large houses of the 17th to 19th centuries scattered across the Conservation Area, mostly still in large gardens. These include The Grange off Nether Green and the Manor House off Upper Green.

Another large house, Rectory House, formerly belonging to Christchurch, Oxford fronts directly onto the churchyard as well as towards Sutton Road. In addition there are some large early 20th century houses built as hunting boxes. At Nether Green, another of the greens but away from the Main Street, are the buildings of the former kennels of the Fernie Hunt. Nether Green is separated from the main village centre of the Church and Rectory House by a large tree-fringed paddock, bounded by brick and mud walls and forming an important open space. Great Bowden manifests the juxtaposition of the affluent and the humble: by the large houses and small cottages, by the use of brick and stone next to mud and simple timber framing.

The Conservation Area abuts the built-up area of housing development extending from Market Harborough in the south, but has open countryside to the north, east and west. It is distinct from Market Harborough, despite its history; but because of it, it has, with its many greens and large houses, developed differently from the other villages in the district.

Great Bowden Conservation Area map