Meriden, the next item upon the way, is heralded by a steeply descending hill; the village below, the church solitary upon the hill-top. Meriden church is quite a little museum of antiquities, and a well-kept one, with everything carefully labelled for the information of the chance visitor—and the door unlocked. Here one finds the effigies of two worthy Warwickshire knights of the fifteenth century, a chained Prayer Book, and the processional staves of a bygone village club, together with a curious old oak alms-chest, dated 1627 and inscribed:
This chest is God’s exchequer, paye in then
Your almes accepted both of God and men.
“Mireden,” as it was invariably called by old-time travellers, is situated on an “uncommonly deep” bed of clay in the hole at the foot of this hill. Pennant, the antiquary, is responsible for the statement that the village was named Alspath until the time of Henry VI., “about which time, becoming a great thoroughfare, it got the name of Myreden—‘den’ signifying a bottom, and ‘myre’ dirt; and I can well vouch for the propriety of the appellation before the institution of turnpikes.”
In his time, between 1739 and 1782, the road at Meriden had been so far improved that travellers no longer stuck in the clay. It had become a turnpike, and, on the testimony of Pennant, “excellent.” But the crest of the hill had still to be climbed, and the depth of the valley to be descended into, before the advent of Telford, some forty years later, when the cutting on the hill-top and the embankment in the hollow were made. The old road—a steep and narrow track—is seen down below, on the right hand, in descending Meriden Hill, and beside it the old “Queen’s Head,” with frontage rebuilt in recent years. Meriden village lies in the succeeding level, with rural cottages on one side of the road, and the ponds and lilied watercourses of Meriden Park on the other; a village green beyond. The houses are still, as in Pennant’s day “pretty”; but in the course of a hundred and twenty years the “magnificent inn, famed from time immemorial for its excellent malt liquor,” has retired into private occupation, and the “various embellishments made by the old innkeeper, Reynolds—little ponds, statues, and other whims,” that used to enliven the spot, have been swept away by Time, like old Reynolds himself.
THE OLD “BULL’S HEAD,” MERIDEN.
There were in coaching days no fewer than eight inns and posting-houses of different degrees in Meriden. There are now but two inns: the “Bull’s Head,” formerly a farmhouse, and the “Queen’s Head,” already mentioned. Among the vanished signs are the “Nag’s Head,” “Malt Shovel,” “Crown,” and “Swan” (now a butcher’s shop). The magnificent inn spoken of by Pennant was the old “Bull’s Head”; whence the licence was transferred to the smaller house, now so named, at the time when coaching ceased to be. The old house is seen on the right hand, a very large, white-plastered building of good architectural character, now secluded from the road by a wall and iron palisade, standing where the drive up to the inn was formerly placed. One of the entrances to and exits from the house in coaching and posting times was by the first-floor window, above where the portico, a later addition, is seen. The “Bull’s Head” was an exclusive and aristocratic house, and preferred the top-sawyers, who posted in their own “chariots,” to those who travelled in hired chaises; while for the mere passengers by mail or stage-coach it had, at the best, but a contemptuous tolerance. And, indeed, it must have been a lordly place, and, with its surrounding gardens, stables, and picturesque turreted clock-tower, more like a private mansion than a place of public resort. There is still in the turret a dilapidated set of chimes that can, with care and patience, be induced to hammer out a few scattered notes of a tune alleged to be that of “God Save the King,” or Queen, as the case may be.
XLVI
Meriden is one of the many reputed “centres of England.” Measure a straight line from the North Foreland to Holyhead, and another from the Lizard to the mouth of the Humber, and their intersection will be at Meriden. With an irregularly shaped country like England, this is a somewhat empirical method, and the other reputed centres are evidently obtained by measuring from various places dictated by individual taste and fancy.