Roger Sacheverell Coke was from a wealthy family. He inherited the family estate of Brookhill Hall, Pinxton at the age of two, when his father, Lieutenant Langton Sacheverell Coke, died at the Battle of Ypres in October 1914. Coke began composing when he was at Eton College, where he was taught by Henry Ley, and was influenced to take up the piano by hearing Benno Moiseiwitsch. Coke's musical interests were strongly supported by his mother and for his 21st birthday, she had outbuildings on the family estate converted to a large music studio and performance space, equipped with a Steinway piano, and with capacity for an audience of several hundred. He pursued his study of composition and the piano seriously. He took piano lessons in London with Mabel Lander (herself a pupil of Theodor Leschetizky and teacher of Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret) and was later a pupil of Alan Bush. He made his debut as a composer-pianist in 1932 with his first piano concerto, and formed the Brookhill Symphony Orchestra in 1940 to play his own and other neglected works.