St Matthew's Church, Meerbrook Meerbrook () is a small village in

North Staffordshire The federation of Stoke-on-Trent was the 1910 amalgamation of the six Staffordshire Potteries towns of Burslem, Tunstall, Stoke-upon-Trent, Hanley, Fenton and Longton into the single county borough of Stoke-on-Trent. An anomaly in the history ...

, on the

River Churnet The River Churnet is a river in Staffordshire, England. It is a tributary of the River Dove. Etymology The origins of the name "Churnet" are unknown, though it is thought to derive from the pre-English, British name for the river. Course ...

at the edge of the

Peak District National Park Peak or The Peak may refer to: Basic meanings Geology * Mountain peak ** Pyramidal peak, a mountaintop that has been sculpted by erosion to form a point Mathematics * Peak hour or rush hour, in traffic congestion * Peak (geometry), an (''n''-3)-di ...

. It is situated four miles north of the town of

Leek The leek is a vegetable, a cultivar of ''Allium ampeloprasum'', the broadleaf wild leek ( syn. ''Allium porrum''). The edible part of the plant is a bundle of leaf sheaths that is sometimes erroneously called a stem or stalk. The genus ''Alli ...

, in the parish of Leekfrith.

The Roaches The Roaches (from the French ''les roches'' - the rocks) is a prominent rocky ridge above Leek and Tittesworth Reservoir in the Staffordshire Peak District of England. The ridge with its rock formations rises steeply to . Along with Ramsha ...

and Hen Cloud, popular walking and climbing locations, are very nearby.

History

The area grew with the expansion of the early medieval wool industry, and the Cistercian Abbey of Dieulacres held three sheep farms in the village. A chapel was built in 1537, later serving as a schoolroom with a paid schoolmaster until around the 1780s. The present church of St. Matthew sits in the centre of the village, and was built 1870-1873. The local Meerbrook

coalfield A coalfield is an area of certain uniform characteristics where coal is mined. The criteria for determining the approximate boundary of a coalfield are geographical and cultural, in addition to geological. A coalfield often groups the seams of ...

was dug commercially from around the 1600s, until 1878. The

adit An adit (from Latin ''aditus'', entrance) is an entrance to an underground mine which is horizontal or nearly horizontal, by which the mine can be entered, drained of water, ventilated, and minerals extracted at the lowest convenient level. Adits ...

sough A sough (pronounced /saʊ/ or /sʌf/) is an underground channel for draining water out of a mine. Ideally the bottom of the mine would be higher than the outlet, but where the mine sump is lower, water must be pumped up to the sough. Derbyshire ...

to provide drainage for the mine is over long. Part of the village was submerged under the man-made Tittesworth reservoir in the early 1960s. There was a silk manufacturing mill, but this closed in 1970. Meerbrook's village school closed in 1969, and the building is now a youth hostel.

Today

Situated between The Roaches and Tittesworth Reservoir, Meerbrook provides a base for a wide variety of outdoor leisure activities. There is a pub, The Lazy Trout, and the Meerbrook Youth Hostel. There is a large and modern Village Hall located just to the west of the village. An annual Scarecrow Festival is held each May. The

Peak District Boundary Walk The Peak District Boundary Walk is a circular walking trail, starting and finishing at Buxton and broadly following the boundary of the Peak District, Britain's first national park. The route was developed by the Friends of the Peak District (a ...

runs through the village.

References

{{coord, 53, 08, 44, N, 2, 01, 2, W, display=title, region:GB_type:city_source:GNS-enwiki Towns and villages of the Peak District Staffordshire Moorlands

History

Today

See also

References