Description:The village of Meerbrook is situated almost due north of the town of Leek off the busy A53 Leek to Buxton road. Its name derives from the Meer Brook and it lies at the centre of a larger township of Leek parish called Leekfrith. The nearby Roaches and Hen Cloud, outcrops of Millstone Grit, dominate the area. ‘The Roaches’ were called as such as far back as the mid-14th century and the name comes from the French word ‘roche’, meaning a rock or cliff. The village itself is small with a number of outlying farms.
There was a settlement at Meerbrook by the 13th century and its situation was probably determined by access to the upper Meer Brook valley and to nearby Gun. The Cistercian Abbey of Dieulacres, which was a big producer of wool by the later 13th century, had three granges or sheep farms here.
Meerbrook was originally a chapel of the large ecclesiastical parish of Leek and its chapel building was in existence by 1537. This was rebuilt in 1565 and was a very simple building, which consisted of a nave, chancel and tower. A room in the tower also served as a schoolroom until the late 18th century. When the Religious Census was taken in 1851, the average congregation on a Sunday was 50 for a morning service and 120 for an afternoon or evening service. The present parish church of St Matthew was designed by the architect, R. Norman Shaw and built in two phases in 1870 and 1873. The building of the new church was financed by Elizabeth Condylyffe.
A Wesleyan Methodist chapel was opened in 1862 and was in use until 1992. Before 1862 the Methodists had met at Roche Grange from about 1798. A Quaker meeting was established at Fould farm in 1669, drawing many of its 30 members from Leek.
Industry in the area was represented by coal mining, as the Meerbrook coalfield, an area of about four square miles, lies between Axe Edge and The Roaches. There is evidence of coal mining in the 16th century and there was a small colliery which had ceased production by 1878. A small community of coal miners grew up in the 19th century around Shaw House to the north east of the village. At nearby Upper Hulme, there was a silk mill by 1831 which continued in operation until 1970.
The Roaches have been popular with visitors for centuries. When they were acquired by the Swythamley Estate in 1811, the Brocklehurst family cut new footpaths and built footbridges to encourage public access. The Rockhall cave, a cave which was inhabited from the early 17th century, was also incorporated into a new-style shooting lodge by Sir Philip Brocklehurst. Among its visitors were Princess Mary of Cambridge in 1872. The lodge was a private house until 1989 and is now a mountaineering refuge.
During the 1950s, concern about the pollution from the Meer Brook led the Staffordshire Potteries Waterworks Board to purchase compulsorily a large number of houses in the village. Tittesworth Reservoir was enlarged between 1959 and 1962. This meant that the Fountain Inn, Waterhouse Farm, a farm dating from at least the 16th century, and several houses were submerged. However during the 1970s, the surviving houses were restored and people encouraged to return to the village.
There was early provision for education in the village, with evidence of a school master in 1623. Until 1778, children were taught in a room in the church tower. In that year a schoolroom was built in the village. This was enlarged in 1871. Until 1930 the school was an all-age school when it became a junior school only. Meerbrook’s village school closed in 1969 and later became a youth hostel.
The village had a number of charities, which were established over the centuries, and included the distribution of bread as well as money to the poor.