I was born in Brierley Hill,many years ago,when all around was soot stained and grimy,real Black Country stuff.I went to school in the area,and worked in the area,I then travelled the world,after my travels,I lived in the South of England,but I always kept in touch with my family,who still live there.Whenever I returned to visit, the changes were outstanding,and now its hard to remember what it was like.How ever one thing as never changed,and that is,I still love the Town,Old and the New.
Brierley Hill - West Midlands purchased for: £ 10.00
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About Brierley Hill - West Midlands
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 on the site of the Round Oak Steelworks. 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 1962, Brierley Hill was served by a railway station for passengers on the Oxford-Worcester-Wolverhampton Line, when passenger services were withdrawn. This was before Richard Beeching brought the axe down on many local railway lines. 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 2011 as an extension to the Midland Metro.
Brierley Hill Town Hall, situated on Bank Street in the town centre, hosted several of Slade's first gigs during the early 1970s, although none of the members were actually from Brierley Hill.
