Cotesbach Hall

Once the 1,200 acre ancient lordship of Cotesbach, the Manor itself, still standing, became sidelined from the early C18th when the Hall (then Rectory) was built for Oxford cleric and mathematician Rev. Edward Wells.  Decades on, the Estate was purchased for Robert Marriott of Braunston, aspiring country gentleman ordained by the Bishop of Oxford, who in 1771 married Elizabeth Stow, from a wealthy London family, and settled at Cotesbach.  His son, also Rev Robert Marriott, built the Schoolhouse, education being the driver, as it is nine generations later, via the Cotesbach Educational Trust.

Many stories are being revealed through documents in the Archive, the earliest being C15th indentures, many of which had survived for over two centuries in the family home, others given back later through family diaspora. Correspondence, diaries, and sermons by over a century of Marriott Rectors and their families, a social history, a theological history – of the Oxford Movement in particular – and a local history revealed in accounts, hunt diaries and much much more. A team of volunteers at CET manage the Archive and welcome enquiries whether in person or online.

The history of the buildings, the material culture within, our ecological heritage, the people who have lived and worked here over the years, our location at the centre of the country’s transport and communications network, once prime agricultural land now endangered, in every aspect of biodiversity, by the march of concrete – all this is central to the distinctiveness of Cotesbach, each strand a subject of historical study in its own right, all part of the warp and weft, a tapestry of past, present and future in which we find ourselves co-creators.