Stays near Meriden

Meriden is a village and civil parish in the borough of Solihull, historically part of Warwickshire. It lies between Birmingham and Coventry in the countryside known as the Meriden Gap, about seven miles west-north-west of Coventry and twelve miles east-south-east of Birmingham city centre. The parish had 3,199 residents at the 2021 census.

People have lived here since the Stone Age, judging by flints from the Blythe Valley and Bronze Age swords have been found in the village. In Domesday it appears as Alspath, Aelle's path, a property of Godiva, the former Countess of Mercia, with its centre on the hill by the parish church at the Coventry end of the village.

The name Meriden, from the Old English for a pleasant valley, gradually replaced Alspath between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. As the king's highway from London to Chester and Holyhead grew, the settlement at the foot of the hill became the real village, stretching by Henry VIII's reign from Meriden Hill to the site of the Bull's Head.

The village also gives its name to the Meriden parliamentary constituency, created in 1955 to cover the Gap. It sits close to the North Warwickshire border, with Corley Rocks, once the southern limit of the Cornovii tribe, nearby.

Stoke Lodge and Stoke House are about 8 miles by road from Meriden, Humber Hub about 9 miles and Sullivan Heights about 9 miles. All four are whole houses with free parking, a sensible base for anyone working between Coventry and the NEC side of Birmingham.