Pirehill Hundred. 647
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PIREHILL HUNDRED. 647 ~1AER is a small village, in a narrow romantic valley, with steep and lofty acclivities, on the Market Drayton road, 7 miles S.W. of Newcastle-under-Lyme. Its parish comprises up wards of 3000 acres of land and 505 inhabitants, of whom 266 are in the district called lt1aerway Lane, but the houses are ge nPrallv scattered in the small hamlets enumerated below. Maer ls supposed to have derived its name from a natuml lake or mere, which occupies about 22 acres at the foot of the vil lage, and is the source of the Tearn, a stream that flows west ward to the borders of Shropshire, and afterwards falls into the Severn. At the east end of this lake, stamls Maer Hall; the property and occasional residence of J osiah Wedgwood, Esq., 1\l.P., of Etruria, who, about twenty years ago, re-edified and converted it into an elegant and modern mansion, and embel lished the grounds with plantations, and other spirited improve ments. Mr. W. is owner of a great part of the parish, and lord of the manm·, which was ancientlv held by .Maers and the Staffords, from whom it passed to the Oldfields and other fami lies, of whom it was purchased by its present owner. Maer Heath, an extensive rugged moor, lying west of the village, was enclosed and divided among the freeholders upwards of twenty years ago"; but a large portion of it is still in a state of nature, and much of it is planted with trees, of which 600,000 were planted by one individual. On the north side of the pa rish are several rocky hills, rising abruptly to a considerable elevation, and rendered highly picturesque by having their summits covered with plantations. One of these bills, called the Byrth, has had a foss and rat~~part ext£'nded round its sum mit, which is nearly a mile in circuit. This and the Camp hill, distant about a mile to the west, are supposed to have been occupied by two contending armies during the Saxon heptar chy. Maer Church, dedicated to St. Peter, stands near the Hall, and is a neat stone edifice, whicll" appears to have been rebuilt in 1610. It contains some monuments of the Bowver and Macclesfield families, and its communion cloth is an old Turkey carpet, brought from Constantinople, by .Margaret Tether, in 1639. The living is a curacy, endowed with two acres of glebe and all the tithes of the parish, exl~ept on the Sidway Hall estate, which is tithe-free, and belongs to Francis Eld, Esq. The Rev. John Alien Wedgwood is the incumbent, and Josiah \Vedgwood, Esq., is the patron and lessee of the tithes.- In 1634, Wm. and John Cleyton gave £160 to Sir Wm. Bowyer, for the purchase of a yearly rent charge of £8, to be paid out of the Sidway Hall farm, one moiety thereof to the minister ofMaer, to encourage him to take pains in preach ing, and in catechising the ignorant; and the other moiety to be employed in apprenticing poor children of this parish. On the Sunday before Christmas day, 40s. are distributed amongst the poor, as tbe interest of £80 left by various donors, and now in the hands of J osiah 'V edgwood, Esq. .