Brierley Hill
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  Map sources for Brierley Hill at grid reference SO9286
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Brierley Hill is a town in Dudley Metropolitan Borough, West Midlands, England. It is best known as the location of the Merry Hill shopping centre. Like most of the Black Country, it is a heavily industrialised town, known for glass and steel manufacture.
Originally part of Staffordshire, Brierley Hill became an urban district in 1894 under the Local Government Act 1894. It expanded vastly in 1934 when it took in the Kingswinford Rural District and the Quarry Bank urban district. It remained an independent urban district until 1966, when it became part of Dudley County Borough and then in 1974 the Metropolitan Borough. It is in the DY5 postal district.
The Merry Hill Centre was built on the grounds of the last working urban farm within the midlands. The Waterfront office complex was built on the site of the town's Round Oak steelworks, a site which was also developed in the 1980s for a railway freight terminal. From 1850 to 1964 Brierley Hill was served by a railway station for passengers on the Stourbridge-Walsall section of the South Staffordshire line, but passenger services were withdrawn due to the Beeching Act. The railway line from Stourbridge through Brierley Hill is still is use for goods trains but since 1993 it has been closed beyond Round Oak Steel Terminal, although that section of line is set to reopen in 2010 as an extension to the Midland Metro.
[edit] Neighbourhoods
- Brockmoor
- Pensnett
- Withymoor Village
- Chapel Street Estate
- Quarry Bank
- Caledonia Estate
- Hawbush Estate
Industrialist John Corbett was born in the town.
Founded in Brierley Hill are The AntHillMob who are Carlton TV's in house enterainment, 2 of its members are from funk rock band Dry Land.
