Cotgrave

Cotgrave () is a town and civil parish in the borough of Rushcliffe in Nottinghamshire, England. It is 5 miles (8 km) south-east of Nottingham. It perches on the South Nottinghamshire Wolds about 131 feet (40 metres) above sea level. The population of the parish in the 2001 census was 7,373 which then decreased to 7,203 at the 2011 census, though Owthorpe was included. It was estimated at 8,113 in 2019. Statistics from the 2021 census show the population had risen to 8,206.

==History== Cotgrave's origins may be in the Iron Age. A 6th-century Anglo-Saxon burial ground has been excavated at Mill Hill to the north of the old village. There was certainly a Saxon church a century before the Norman Conquest. The Roman Fosse Way passes a mile to the east, where it changes direction slightly. The A46 follows its course, and during improvements in 2012–13, excavations uncovered Ice Age flint tools. Evidence of an Iron Age settlement was also found at Owthorpe Junction, just to the east, and a 4,000-year-old Neolithic circular monument with eight Bronze Age burials emerged slightly further north at Stragglethorpe junction.