Oldbury is a town in Sandwell, West Midlands in England. It is a section of the Black Country, and the administrative centre of the borough of Sandwell. The town's name originates from the Old English 'Ealdenbyrig', which signifies that Oldbury was old even in early English times over 1000 years ago. Eald is Old English for 'old', and Byrig is the plural of 'burh' in Old English, with a burh being a stronghold or fortified town. In accordance with the 2011 Census, the town has a permanent population of around 13606 people. Oldbury belonged to the ancient parish of Halesowen, a removed part of Shropshire surrounded by Worcestershire and Staffordshire, until the Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844, when it was incorporated back into Worcestershire after an absence of nine-hundred years. It came to be an Urban District in 1894, getting Municipal Borough status in 1935. In this time, Oldbury council developed several thousand houses, flats and cottages for some 40 years till its dissolution, the 1000th of which was finished in 1933 at Wallace Road near the border with Rowley Regis. Since the 1980s, the town has actually seen ongoing growth, primarily the creation of more retail opportunities. This includes Oldbury Green Retail Park, set on the town's ring road, which was created in the middle of the 1990s. This, alongside the advancement of the Merry Hill Shopping Centre found roughly six miles away during the course of the second half of the 1980s, has contributed to a decrease in the functioning of close-by West Bromwich town centre as a retail centre for locals. For all your home improvements, make sure to identify trusted professionals in Oldbury to make certain of quality.