Brierley Hill is a compact town and electoral ward of the Dudley Metropolitan Borough within the West Midlands of England. It's situated roughly 2.5 miles south of central Dudley and 2 miles north of Stourbridge. Brierley Hill was initially in Staffordshire, but is now part of the West Midlands metropolitan county ever since its creation in 1974. A part of the Black Country, and within a heavily industrialised area of the Dudley Borough, it features a population of roughly 14,000 inhabitants, as outlined by the 2011 census. Primarily a product of the Industrial Revolution, Brierley Hill has a relatively current history, with the very first written records of the town dating back to the 17th century. Originally established as a settlement in the woodland of Pensnett Chase, it began to expand quickly following the chase's enclosure in 1748, and was initially recorded on a map in 1785 after the mapping of the Stourbridge Canal. The town is mostly famous for glass and steel production, though the business has declined considerably since the 1970s. On the list of the largest factories within the area was the Round Oak Steelworks, which was closed down and redeveloped during the 1980s to turn into the Merry Hill Shopping Centre. The Merry Hill Shopping Centre is immediately to the east of Brierley Hill. One of the largest shopping centres in the UK, it was constructed between 1985 and 1989 on the site of Merry Hill Farm, the final operating urban farm in the West Midlands. Since 2008, Brierley Hill, including the close by Waterfront Business Park and Merry Hill Shopping Centre, has been officially named as 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 improvement work, be sure that you utilise trustworthy experts in Brierley Hill to make sure that you get the best quality service.