BOWDEN (GREAT), a parish in the hundred of
GARTREE, county of LEICESTER, 1 mile (N.E.) from
Market-Harborough, containing, with the town of
Market-Harborough, '2834 inhabitants. The living is
a perpetual curacy, in the archdeaconry of Leicester .
and diocese of Lincoln, endowed with £200 private
benefaction, £200 royal bounty, and £600 parliamentary
grant, and in the patronage of the Dean and
Canons of Christ Church, Oxford. The church is dedicated
to St. Peter. The river Welland bounds the
parish on the south, and a branch of the Union Canal
passes near the village. There are two trifling endowments
for the instruction of poor children, one given
by John Durrad, in 1723, and the other by the Rev.
Robert Atkins.