Brierley Hill in the 1980s to become the Merry Hill Shopping Centre. Brierley Hill was originally in Staffordshire, but is now part of the West Midlands metropolitan county since its creation in 1974. Since 2008, Brierley Hill, including the nearby Waterfront Business Park and Merry Hill Shopping Centre, has been designated as the Strategic Town Centre of the Dudley Borough, with the aim of creating a new town centre for the borough. The name Brierley Hill derives from the Old English words 'brer', meaning the place where the Briar Rose grew; 'leah', meaning a woodland clearing; and 'hill'. Largely a product of
Merry Hill Shopping Centre the store later being purchased and refurbished by electrical retailer BestBuy, who opened their store in May 2010. By Christmas 1985, MFI had been joined by Queensway furniture store and electrical retailer Atlantis. Further retail warehousing units and a shopping mall were already under construction by this stage. By the summer of 1986, two retail parks existed at the site, incorporating retailers including B&Q, Halfords and Texas Homecare. The first shopping centre opened in April 1986, with French hypermarket giant Carrefour opening a store at the centre on 1 July that year. They sold the store to Gateway Foodmarkets two