Cottesmore in Rutland is a Village with a rich and important history.

The Heritage Lottery Fund gave us the money and with the support, provided by Leicester and Nottingham Universities it has enabled us to look at the last hundred years of the history of our village.

So we have recorded the land we worked, the schools, the buildings, the shops and how we sent our letters. We have seen how events outside the village – in war and peace – changed our lives. And found some villagers who went on to change others' lives too.

During the nineteenth century and the Industrial Revolution there were changes as young people left the village to earn wages in the new industries.

Between 1914 and 1918, 86 Cottesmore men marched to war. 76 came back. Their experiences were to drive enormous changes for them, their families and the whole of the county. During the twentieth century the number and nature of land-based jobs, in particular, were changed by mechanisation and the demand for servants declined

Cottesmore grew from a peaceful rural village to one that depended on war, or the threat of war. For over 70 years it was an important air base and during the cold war, part of the nation's nuclear deterrent.

Now Cottesmore is a very mixed community with two primary schools, many retired people, workers in all sorts of employment and self-employment but not as self-sufficient as it was.