Brierley Hill is a compact town and electoral ward of the Dudley Metropolitan Borough in the West Midlands of England. It is situated roughly 2.5 miles to the south of central Dudley and 2 miles north of Stourbridge. Brierley Hill was originally in Staffordshire, but is now a part of the West Midlands metropolitan county since its creation in 1974. A part of the Black Country, and inside a heavily industrialised area of the Dudley Borough, it boasts a population of about 14,000 residents, in line with the 2011 census. Primarily a product of the Industrial Revolution, Brierley Hill features a somewhat modern history, with the initial written records of the town going back to the seventeenth century. Originally created as a settlement in the woodland of Pensnett Chase, it began expanding rapidly after the chase's enclosure in 1748, and was first recorded on a map in 1785 following the mapping of the Stourbridge Canal. The town is primarily recognized for glass and steel production, 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 be transformed into the Merry Hill Shopping Centre. The Merry Hill Shopping Centre is situated immediately east of Brierley Hill. One of the biggest shopping centres in the United Kingdom, it was constructed between 1985 and 1989 on the site of Merry Hill Farm, the final operating urban farm within the West Midlands. Since 2008, Brierley Hill, including the neighbouring Waterfront Business Park and Merry Hill Shopping Centre, has been officially named the Strategic Town Centre of the Dudley Borough, with the purpose of making a new town centre for the borough. For all of your house improvements, be sure that you work with reliable experts in Brierley Hill to make sure that you get the top quality service.