Cosby, Leicestershire
Historical Description
Cosby, a village and a parish in Leicestershire. The village stands on an affluent of the river Soar, near the M.R. and the Fosse Way, 1 mile NNE of Broughton Astley railway station, and 7 miles SSW of Leicester, under which is the post office; money order and telegraph office, Narborough. The parish includes also part of the village of Little Thorpe. Acreage, 2318; population of the civil parish, 1161; of the ecclesiastical, 1073. A number of the inhabitants are framework knitters. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Peterborough; value, £100. The church is an ancient building of stone in the Decorated and Perpendicular styles. There are Baptist and Primitive Methodist chapels.
Administration
The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.
Ancient County | Leicestershire | |
Ecclesiastical parish | Cosby St. Michael | |
Hundred | Guthlaxton | |
Poor Law union | Blaby |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
The parish register dates from 1557, and is in good condition.
Findmypast, in association with the Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester & Rutland, have the following parish records online for Cosby:
Baptisms | Banns | Marriages | Burials |
---|---|---|---|
1557-1908 | 1655-1940 | 1557-1921 | 1557-1900 |
Churches
Church of England
St. Michael and All Angels (parish church)
The church of St. Michael and All Angels is a building of stone in the Decorated and Perpendicular styles, with traces of Norman and Early English work, and consists of chancel, clerestoried nave, aisle, north porch of red, brick and an embattled western Perpendicular tower with a Decorated spire: there are three stained windows, one being a memorial to the Armston family: the communion plate includes an ancient chalice of about the year 1560: in 1920 a tablet was placed in the church as a memorial to the men of the parish who fell in the Great War: there are 200 sittings.
Civil Registration
For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Cosby from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Cosby (St. Michael))
Land and Property
A full transcript of the Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Leicestershire is online.
Maps
Online maps of Cosby are available from a number of sites:
- Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- Google Streetview.
- National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
- OpenStreetMap.
- old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
- Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)
Newspapers and Periodicals
The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Leicestershire newspapers online: