Description:Situated to the west of Longton, Meir was originally a small rural community, part of the larger parish of Caverswall. It is now a busy town in the City of Stoke on Trent, known to those who live there as “the Meir”.
Communications came early to Meir. Although its development is relatively recent, the Roman road, known as Richmild Street, which followed a route from near to Derby to Chesterton near Newcastle under Lyme, ran through Meir. The place name, Meir, is descriptive, meaning ‘marsh’, and the Roman road crossed the marsh by means of a causeway. The busy intersection between the old A50 from Stoke to Derby and the A520 from Stone to Leek is still at the centre of the town. In the 1990s the construction of the new A50 through Meir led to the demolition of many of its local landmarks.
In response to a growing population, Meir’s railway station on the Stoke to Uttoxeter line was opened in 1893. Meir was also the site of the City of Stoke on Trent’s aerodrome, opened in 1935. This provided the facility for internal flights to Birmingham and London and to Manchester, Liverpool, Belfast and Glasgow. In 1937 a Royal Air Force Flying School was also housed at the aerodrome. The airfield saw extensive development during the Second World War when a new aircraft factory was built adjacent to the airfield. This was known as a ‘shadow’ factory and the production of the Bristol Blenheim was transferred here from Speke. Following the end of the war, the factory’s production was changed to refrigerators and colliery equipment. The aerodrome continued to be used by local businesses and for gliding for some time but was eventually closed in the 1970s.
Meir, together with Basford, Abbey Hulton and Trent Vale, was the site of the City’s first major housing programme, which began in 1919 to replace overcrowded and insanitary housing in the nearby Pottery towns. After 1922, land acquired by the City Council, as part of an extension to the City’s boundaries, enabled it to build 370 homes on Sandon Road. This new housing development also led to the enlargement of the sewage works at Meir in 1934. Between 1891 and the 1930s the local population of Meir increased by nearly 11,000 people.
The earliest school was provided in Meir from 1877 but the extension of housing in the 1920s led to the opening of further schools in the district. Other new developments which followed the building of the extensive housing estates included the Broadway cinema, opened in 1936 and very much a local landmark. It was demolished in 1973.
Before Meir’s parish church was built, services for the community had taken place from 1876 in Meir Board Schools. Holy Trinity church was built in 1890-1893. It was built on land donated for the purpose by the fourth Duke of Sutherland and two local benefactors, Sir Smith Child and the Bowers family of Caverswall Castle contributed much of the cost of the building.