England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Cotesbach St Mary

The Parish

The parish of Cotesbach lies in the extreme south of Leicestershire forming a stretch of the border with neighbouring Warwickshire, the border here and for some distance northwestwards is formed by the ancient Roman Road of Watling Street. Cotesbach is located roughly 1 1/2 miles southwest of the town of Lutterworth and sits, in an out-and-back loop of lanes, immediately west of the A426 road which links Lutterworth with the Warwickshire town of Rugby. Cotesbach is a small village with most properties built along Main Street, the lane which loops away from and then back to the A426 with a small presence on the main road too. Cotesbach sits on the eastern slopes of the valley formed by the River Swift, this valley setting gave the village access to rich grazing alongside the river as well as drier land further away and lead to a mixed farming regime within the parish. Modern developments have come to Cotesbach, the railway line linking Lutterworth with Rugby may well have disappeared but the modern M1 motorway, lying just a mile east of the village, takes advantage of some of its former route. Whilst Cotesbach remains rural and undeveloped the area is advantageous in terms of its communications and a development area for distributional warehouses. Cotesbach is drained southwestwards by the Swift which meets the Avon at Rugby, the Severn thereafter and eventually the sea through the Bristol Channel. Cotesbach is sited at around 120 metres above the sea in gently rolling terrain, away from the Swift's valley land rises eastwards to a local high point of 153 metres around 2 miles to its east. By Leicestershire standards Cotesbach was quite a small parish, covering only a little over 1,200 acres it supported fewer than 100 parishioners. In Domesday times Cotesbach was equally rural and small, held by Hugh de Grandmesnil it could muster just 5 ploughs but did possess a mill.

The Church

St Mary's church sits toward the eastern end of the village on the northern side of Main Street. Whilst there has been a church here since early times little remains of what would have been a typical Norman church with a central crossing tower, archaeological work shows that there are a few remains of that crossing tower which have been modified into the unusually placed tower of today, midway along the southern face yet projecting into the main body. Indeed later work has all but covered any medieval material too, the windows show a styling of the Perpendicular period and some timbers within the southern porch are also 14th century and also Perpendicular. The church has, at some time, been almost completely covered with stucco to mimic ashlar, leaving only the top stages, in brick, of the tower and some exposed rubble in the chancel. Dates etched into the tower indicate the work may be of the Georgian period, 1812 is shown on the tower's western face, the date also covers work replacing arches between nave & chancel as well as the chancel's roof. All this Georgian work precluded the necessity for a typical Victorian restoration, none is mentioned in Pevsner. Main Street is of sufficient width to allow parking outside the churchyard, which has a low post & rail fence to the street with a wooden gate at the western end. The churchyard is open & uncluttered with no obstacles to impede the photographer.