The district developed in the 1880s and is named after an old manor called Bowes 1396, marked as Bowes Farm and Bowes on the Ordnance Survey maps of 1822 and 1877, respectively. This is 'estate of a family called Bowes' ; one John de Arcubus occurs in a local document from 1274. John de Arcubus was one of many de Arcubi who lived around St Mary-le-Bow church in the City of London.
Community and grassroots campaigns
Bowes Park is a small community centred around , which houses a number of shops. There has been a strong local grassroots campaign to rejuvenate the street. The local action group "We Love Myddleton Road" meet several times a year and work with the police and local council to encourage regeneration and business development in the area. English Heritage recently put forward funding for a number shopfronts to be restored in a traditional timber framed style. As of 2016, businesses and shops on Myddleton Road included a cafe and bar; an interior design and gifts shop; a Greek bakery; a Greek deli; an Italian deli; a , amongst other things; a gym; a vintage interiors shop; a barber shop; and a . The Bowes Park community also hosts the regular and the Bowes Park Summer Festival. The road is named after Sir Hugh Myddelton, constructor of the New River, which passes through Bowes Park and under the road itself. A smaller shopping area is at the north end of Whittington Road.
The Bowes Park ward covers areas just south of North Circular Road, but not the rail station. The 2011 census showed that the ward's population was 62% white, and 8% was Indian.
Places of worship
The Anglican St Michael at Bowes Church, and Trinity at Bowes Methodist Church, lie at the northern end of Palmerston Road. is a rare example of a 19th-century tin tabernacle, which lies abandoned on the western side of Bowes Park station, on Herbert Road. Current part-owners The Samaritans have recently rebuilt the building for community use following an earlier proposal for demolition and replacement with a modern office block which was successfully opposed by local people.
The shops in Myddleton Road featured in the first episode of the 1999 Channel 4sitcomSpaced. Myddleton Road makes another brief appearance in a flashback sequence in episode 4 of the first series. The series Director Edgar Wright used to live in a Myddleton Road flat. Some of the exterior sequences featuring Omid Djalili for the David Baddiel scripted film The Infidel were shot in Thorold Road. Myddleton Road is included in some of the interior and exterior locations in the music video made by Free Seed Films for The Blockheads "Express Yourself" the first single from their 2013 album 'Same Horse Different Jockey'. The album was recorded at the Cowshed Studio in Myddleton Road Bowes Park.
Arthur C Clarke, a British science fiction author and inventor, lived at 88 Nightingale Road, Bowes Park, from 1946 with his brother Fred Clarke and Fred's wife Dorothy.
Donald MacCadie, inventor of the AVOmeter, lived at 190 Bowes Road at the corner of Moffat Road. For a time he rented Shaftesbury Hall, a pre-fabricated corrugated iron chapel or tin tabernacle on Herbert Road, as an assembly shop for his invention.
