Brierley Hill
Brierley Hill is a small town and electoral ward of the Dudley Metropolitan Borough within the West Midlands of England. It is approximately 2.5 miles to the south of central Dudley and 2 miles north of Stourbridge. Brierley Hill was traditionally in Staffordshire, but is now part of the West Midlands metropolitan county ever since its creation in 1974. Part of the Black Country, and in a heavily industrialised area of the Dudley Borough, it features a resident population of approximately 14,000 people, based on the 2011 census. Primarily created by the Industrial Revolution, Brierley Hill boasts a reasonably recent history, with the original written records of the town going back to the 17th century. Originally created as a settlement within the woodland of Pensnett Chase, it started to expand rapidly after the chase's enclosure in 1748, and was first shown on a map in 1785 after the mapping of the Stourbridge Canal. The town is best known for glass and steel manufacturing, though the industry has declined significantly since the 1970s. One of the largest factories in the area was the Round Oak Steelworks, which was shut and renovated during the 1980s to turn into the Merry Hill Shopping Centre. The Merry Hill Shopping Centre is situated immediately to the east of Brierley Hill. One of the biggest shopping centres in the country, it was constructed between 1985 and 1989 on the site of Merry Hill Farm, the final functioning urban farm in the West Midlands. Since 2008, Brierley Hill, including the nearby Waterfront Business Park and Merry Hill Shopping Centre, has been officially named as the Strategic Town Centre of the Dudley Borough, with the aim to make a new town centre for the borough. For all of your property improvements, make sure that you pick trustworthy pros in Brierley Hill to ensure you get a great quality service.