History
'Meece' is an unusual name, and there seems to be no actual town or village called 'Meece', does there? We have 'Cold Meece' (the 'cold' means outside of Meece), and we have 'Mill Meece' (clearly industrial), so where is Meece itself? Well, it's not a village - it's a house!
Meece House used to stand just north of here between the industrial estate and the entrance to the Swynnerton millitary Training Area - you can still see the remains of the entry drive on the west side of the road, but there's nothing left. The brick mansion was built by John Astbury in the early 1800s and named after the Meece Brook, and his family lived there for a couple of generations, when Edward Wood (of 'Wood & Son Pottery') bought it. In 1939 the military requisitioned it for officers and senior managers of the Ordnance Factory, and then sold it when they sold much of the land around here in 1958. Since then it's been unused and was pulled down in 1998. But... where did the house get its name from?
On the other side of the railway is the Meece Brook, which runs past where the house used to be and follows the West Coast Mainline past Norton Bridge to join the River Sow south of Shallowford.
'Meecebrook' is likely to become the name of a large new 'garden village' built between here and Norton Bridge. If you are a resident of Meecebrook from a future time when the settlement has been built, well then 'Welcome' to 2020!
Random Transport Connection: On April 22, 1910, the French pioneer aviator Louis Paulhan flew over here on the first-ever flight from London to Manchester - and in so doing claimed the Daily Mail's prize of £10,000 (in today's money that's over a million quid). Meece House used to have a plaque commemorating this. Nope, even Ant can't stratch and make a vague connection to that random factoid, so we'll just leave it there...