Cowers Lane is a settlement in

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the nor ...

bordering

Shottle Shottle is a village approximately south of the market town of Wirksworth in Derbyshire. The population of the civil parish (Shottle and Postern) at the 2011 Census was 266. In Norman times, the manor of Shottle, referred to as ''Sothille'' in ...

near

Belper Belper is a town and civil parish in the local government district of Amber Valley in Derbyshire, England, located about north of Derby on the River Derwent. As well as Belper itself, the parish also includes the village of Milford and the ha ...

England along the A517 road. In Norman times, Shottle Park was one of the seven parks within

Duffield Frith Duffield Frith was, in medieval times, an area of Derbyshire in England, part of that bestowed upon Henry de Ferrers (or Ferrars) by King William, controlled from his seat at Duffield Castle. From 1266 it became part of the Duchy of Lancaster a ...

. It was the site of a large shelter for cattle belonging to the

Duchy of Lancaster The Duchy of Lancaster is the private estate of the Monarchy of the United Kingdom, British sovereign as Duke of Lancaster. The principal purpose of the estate is to provide a source of independent income to the sovereign. The estate consists of ...

who owned the Frith. It is generally believed that the name is the local dialect equivalent of "Cow House Lane".Bland, J., (1922) ''Duffield: Village, Church and Castle,'' Derby: Harpur and Son
"Cowhouse Lane has a post-office, and the official Post-Office Guide prints the name "Cowers Lane." My father, who deplored the loss of old associations. once asked the then post-master there how this came about. His answer was to this effect: "One day a letter came from the head office, asking me which was the correct name, 'Cowhouse,' or 'Cowers,' so I counted the letters which had come that morning, and as there were more addressed ' Cowers' than 'Cowhouse,' I replied that Cowers was correct." It therefore became and remains, officially, Cowers Lane; so carelessly are place-names distorted and historical connections lost."

References

: Hamlets in Derbyshire Towns and villages of the Peak District Geography of Amber Valley {{Derbyshire-geo-stub