Coston

St Andrew’s church, Coston is in rural north-east Leicestershire. It is a very small community with just a handful of houses around an ancient parish church, although earthworks show there was once a substantial village here.

The church is a Grade I listed building, with key features including a west wall dating from c.1070, two panes of 14th-century stained glass, the earliest 19th-century Gothic Revival chancel fittings in Leicestershire and a memorial to an actor killed in a tragic accident on a London stage during the opening night of a new production.  

Thanks to the National Lottery Heritage Fund and other grant funders, repairs are now complete and the west window of 1846, by William Warrington, one of the major stained glass artists of the Gothic Revival and the royal arms of 1780 have also been restored. The history of the church has been researched, and a guide has been produced by Dr Pamela Fisher of Leicestershire VCH Trust. A brief version is now available online.