Meifod 1952-2022

As part of Meifod’s celebrations to mark Queen Elizabeth’s platinum jubilee the history group was asked to put together an exhibition about Meifod during the Queen’s reign.

The exhibition was displayed in the church over the jubilee weekend (2nd-5th June 2022) and on the (bank holiday) Friday and the Saturday Meifod WI provided visitors with coffee, tea and cakes from the vestry.

The main exhibition was supplemented with a display of telephones from the seventy years of the Queen’s reign.

The exhibition was considered a success, with a large number of people coming to see it – and even long-standing Meifodians claimed to have found things in it about Meifod’s history that they didn’t know.
 

Who did what

Research: Frances & Dave Ward

Text: Frances Ward

Contributors: Chris Roberts, John Williams, Vira Price, Roy Jones

Telecoms from 1952-2022: Chris Roberts

The framework of the exhibition

The exhibition was separated into distinct sections:

Meifod in the 1950s: including the new primary school, plenty of shops, and otters in the Vyrnwy

The coronation: including the Queen’s dress, and the gold state coach

Coronation celebrations in Meifod: based on a leaflet published at the time

These boards were followed by sections showing what had happened in Meifod in the seventy years of the Queen’s reign.

LOST: two garages, the bank, the Lion Hotel, the Wesleyan chapel, and many shops

GAINED: a new village hall, sewage works, and flood defences

GOT AWAY: the radio telescope in the hills above Meifod proposed by Sir Bernard Lovell (because of Meifod’s dark skies) – a plan which divided opinion both in the village, and much further afield, on environmental grounds. It was finally abandoned because costs escalated too much, and a smaller radio telescope was built at Knockin, near Oswestry.’

SAME: Meifod’s Women’s Institute – which started in 1919 – is still flourishing in 2025

And throughout the seventy years Meifod’s community spirit has remained the same, shown recently in...

• The help provided throughout the pandemic from the village shop, and people collecting and delivering medication
• The united fight in 2012 against the chain of pylons that National Grid proposed to run through the Vyrnwy valley
• The coming together in both 2014 and 2018 to mark the impact of WWI on the village. For more details - WWI exhibition, Local research>Meifod WWI soldiers > introduction

What follows are images from the exhibition, including seven high-resolution downloads