Cosby, Leicestershire
Encyclopedia
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
county of Leicestershire
Leicestershire
Leicestershire is a landlocked county in the English Midlands. It takes its name from the heavily populated City of Leicester, traditionally its administrative centre, although the City of Leicester unitary authority is today administered separately from the rest of Leicestershire...
. Cosby is located in the south west of the county near the larger villages and towns of Whetstone
Whetstone, Leicestershire
Whetstone is a village and civil parish in the Blaby district of Leicestershire, England. It has a population of 6,000 and largely acts as a commuter village for Leicester, five miles to the north...
, Blaby
Blaby
Blaby is a village in central Leicestershire, England, some five miles south of Leicester city centre. It has population of around 6,240 , and its proximity to the city causes it to form part of the Leicester Urban Area....
and Wigston. Its proximity to the city of Leicester
Leicester
Leicester is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England, and the county town of Leicestershire. The city lies on the River Soar and at the edge of the National Forest...
means it is part of the Leicester Urban Area
Leicester Urban Area
The Leicester Urban Area is a conurbation based around the city of Leicester in Leicestershire, England.While it has no formal definition as an administrative area, it is defined by the Office for National Statistics with a population of 441,213 at the time of the 2001 census...
.
It is not known how the name originated, and it is first recorded as "Cossebi" in the Domesday Book
Domesday Book
Domesday Book , now held at The National Archives, Kew, Richmond upon Thames in South West London, is the record of the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086...
. It was described as a "considerable village" in 1810 by historian John Nicholls. In 1991 it had a population of 3,400 and in 2001 a population of 3,489. The parish church is St Michael and All Angels'. It also has a Methodist and Baptist Church. Cosby has a brook which runs through the village and eventually serves as a tributary to the River Soar. Cosby has two schools - Cosby Primary School and Brooke House Day Nursery. Cosby has football, rugby and cricket teams which all participate in Leicestershire's sporting leagues. The teams play their home games at Victory Park and has a website at www.cosbyrfc.co.uk. Cosby also has a barn that dates to 1766.
The Great Central Railway
Great Central Railway
The Great Central Railway was a railway company in England which came into being when the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway changed its name in 1897 in anticipation of the opening in 1899 of its London Extension . On 1 January 1923, it was grouped into the London and North Eastern...
, the last main line to be built from the north of England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, opened on 15 Mar 1899 and ran past the east side of Cosby on an embankment. Although there was never a station
Train station
A train station, also called a railroad station or railway station and often shortened to just station,"Station" is commonly understood to mean "train station" unless otherwise qualified. This is evident from dictionary entries e.g...
at Cosby, this section of the line was well known for the lengthy curve which for northbound trains was to the right (east), after coming out of which the city of Leicester would be directly ahead and the route would be almost ruler straight all the rest of the way to the centre of the city, a distance of almost 5 miles (8 km). Railwaymen referred to this curve as Cosby Corner. The line closed on 5 May 1969; today the rear gardens of many adjacent homes have been extended up over the embankment.
Sir Garfield Sobers has visited Cosby twice in early-mid 2009. First, he was the guest at a special evening when he talked about his cricket career. The former West Indies captain returned a few days later to join members who had successfully bid to play a round of golf with him. His visits came during a busy spell for Cosby when they hosted the County Championship at the end of June 2009.
In September 2011, Cosby's Lucy Garner sprinted to a superb victory in Copenhagen to claim the Junior Women's World Championship. She has been shortlisted in the 2011 BBC Young Sports Personality Award category.