COSBY, a village and a parish in Blaby district, Leicestershire. The village stands on an affluent of the river Soar, near the Midland railway and the Fosse way, 1¾ mile NNE of Broughton-Astley r. station, and 7 SSW of Leicester; and has a post office under Lutterworth. The parish includes also the hamlet of Little Thorpe. Acres, 2, 550. Real property, £4, 653. Pop., 974. Houses, 228. The property is much subdivided. A number of the inhabitants are stocking-makers. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Peterborough. Value, £138. Patron, Thomas Pares, Esq 'The church is old but good. There are a Baptist chapel and charities £6.

(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))