Bowes is a village in
County Durham, England. Located in the
Pennine hills, it is situated close to
Barnard Castle
Barnard Castle (, ) is a market town on the north bank of the River Tees, in County Durham, Northern England. The town is named after and built around a medieval castle ruin. The town's Bowes Museum's has an 18th-century Silver Swan automato ...
. It is built around the medieval
Bowes Castle.
Geography and administration
Civic history
Bowes lies within the
historic county boundaries of the
North Riding of Yorkshire, but along with the rest of the former
Startforth Rural District it was incorporated into the non-metropolitan county of
Durham Durham most commonly refers to:
*Durham, England, a cathedral city and the county town of County Durham
*County Durham, an English county
* Durham County, North Carolina, a county in North Carolina, United States
*Durham, North Carolina, a city in N ...
for administrative purposes on 1 April 1974, under the provisions of the
Local Government Act 1972.
The
A66 and
A67 roads meet at Bowes.
History
The
Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...
name for Bowes was
Lavatrae. A Roman fort was located there, which was re-used as the site for Bowes Castle.
The place-name 'Bowes' is first attested in a
charter of 1148, where it appears as ''Bogas''. This is the plural of the
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...
''boga'' meaning 'bow', probably signifying an arched bridge.
The village church is dedicated to
St Giles
Saint Giles (, la, Aegidius, french: Gilles), also known as Giles the Hermit, was a hermit or monk active in the lower Rhône most likely in the 6th century. Revered as a saint, his cult became widely diffused but his hagiography is mostly lege ...
.
The only pub in the village, the formerly named George Inn owned by the Railton family and now named ''The Ancient Unicorn'', is reputed to be haunted by several ghosts. This 17th-century coaching inn famously played host to
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...
as he toured the local area. Dickens found inspiration in the village academy, which he immortalised as
Dotheboys Hall in ''
Nicholas Nickleby
''Nicholas Nickleby'' or ''The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby'' (or also ''The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, Containing a Faithful Account of the Fortunes, Misfortunes, Uprisings, Downfallings, and Complete Career of the ...
'', and the graves of two of the people who inspired characters portrayed by the great author can be seen in Bowes churchyard to this day. William Shaw (1782-1850) was the headmaster of The Bowes Academy, and is said to have been the model for Wackford Squeers in ''Nicholas Nickleby'' – they share the same initials. And George Ashton Taylor, who died in 1822 aged 19, apparently inspired Dickens to create the character of Smike in the same novel.
From 1861 to 1962, the village was served by
Bowes railway station. Just to the north of the village at Stoney Keld, is the site of the former
RAF Bowes Moor
RAF Bowes Moor was a chemical warfare agent (CWA) storage site run by the Royal Air Force during and after the Second World War. The site was to the north of the village of Bowes in what is now County Durham, England. The Bowes Moor geographical ...
, a chemical warfare agent storage site between 1941 and 1947. The Bowes Loop of the
Pennine Way
The Pennine Way is a National Trail in England, with a small section in Scotland. The trail stretches for from Edale, in the northern Derbyshire Peak District, north through the Yorkshire Dales and Northumberland National Park and ends at Kir ...
goes through the site.
The village is also home to possibly the smallest former working men's club in the country. Now known as Bowes Social Club, it is run by volunteers and is often used as a venue to raise money for local events.
Education
Bowes has a single primary school at the centre of the village, Bowes Hutchinson's C of E (Aided) Primary School.
Notable people
Thomas Kipling (bap. 1745, d. 1822), dean of Peterborough, was born in Bowes.
John Bailey (1750–1819), mathematician and land surveyor was born in Bowes.
Richard Cobden
Richard Cobden (3 June 1804 – 2 April 1865) was an English Radical and Liberal politician, manufacturer, and a campaigner for free trade and peace. He was associated with the Anti-Corn Law League and the Cobden–Chevalier Treaty.
As a you ...
(1804–65), manufacturer and politician, was schooled in Bowes.
[Miles Taylor, ‘Cobden, Richard (1804–1865)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 200]
accessed 2 May 2011
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References
External links
Bowes village website
*
{{authority control
Villages in County Durham
Civil parishes in County Durham
