Cotesbach Educational Trust

Who we are

Imagine if your family had kept almost every single piece of paper that passed through their hands, for hundreds of years.

What would you have? Where would you keep it? What stories could you share?

Cotesbach Educational Trust, a heritage education charity just outside of Lutterworth, South Leicestershire was formed after just such a discovery.

The Marriott family, residents of Cotesbach Estate for 250 years, stored away receipts, letters, diaries, maps, deeds and more offering a rich picture of every day housekeeping to current affairs and global adventures in Georgian and Victorian times.

Thanks to the support of Heritage Lottery Fund and numerous other funders, we were able to move over 6000 documents, described by National Archives as “of considerable historical importance” into a temperate Archive housed in the former Coach House. In addition our site now comprises a glass and oak activity space/café, toilet block in the former milking parlour, and a stunning, eighteenth century Grade II listed Georgian Schoolhouse.