The village's name means 'burial-mound hill'. There are a number of barrows in the area.[3]
The population of the civil parish was 506 at the 2011 census.[4]
There is a church, a village hall, a doctor's surgery and pharmacy, a community shop, a mobile library, a recreational field with cricket club and a pub, The Exeter Arms.
St Peter's Church, Barrowden is a Grade II* listed building.[5] In an ancient tradition, rushes or hay are laid on the floors of nave and porch for St Peter's Day (29 June). Marianne Mason (1807–1884), a farmer's daughter who taught at the Baptist Sunday school in Barrowden, married Thomas Cook here on 2 March 1833.
