Brierley Hill in 1872

BRIERLEY HILL, a town and a chapelry in Kingswinford parish, Stafford. The town stands on the river Stour, the Dudley and .Stourbridge canal, and the West Midland railway,  2 miles NNE of Stourbridge; .and has a station on the railway and a head post-office.  It lies in a hilly tract of great mineral wealth; forms a street about a mile long; carries on industry in clay mines, clay fields, brick-works, potteries, glass-works, iron-rolling-mills, boiler-works, chain and spade factories, and malting establishments; and publishes a weekly newspaper.

The church at it is a cruciform structure, built in 1765, and enlarged in 1823, and 1837, with a tower which commands an extensive view ; and there are chapels for Independents, Baptists, Wesleyan Methodists, and Primitive Methodists.

The chapelry includes the town; and was constituted in 1842. Pop., 10,755. Houses, 2,060. The living is a rectory, united with the perpetual curacy of Hart's Hill, in the diocese of Lichfield.  Value, £300. Patron, the Rector of Kingswinford.

 

[Description(s) from The Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72) - Transcribed by Mike Harbach ©2020]