Quarry Bank

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Quarry Bank is a small town in the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley, West Midlands, England. Locally, the name is often pronounced, "Quarry Bonk" (In Black Coountry Dialect) The Black Country Bugle local newspaper

Originally the area was a remote part of the parish of Kingswinford, included in Pensnett Chase. The earliest settlements in Quarry Bank were smallholdings, where an industrial worker such as a [[nail (fastener)|nailer lived. Early industrial development took place the early 17th century around the Cradley Forge.

Quarry Bank acquired its own parish status in September 1844. It had an urban sanitory authority and so became an urban district of Staffordshire from 1894. However in 1934, it amalgamated with the Brierley Hill urban district. This became part of the county borough of Dudley in 1966 and then the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley in West Midlands since 1974.

Quarry Bank has become greatly affected by the adjacent Merry Hill Shopping Centre which has bought high volumes of traffic along the High Street. This has meant demolition of a number of homes, the closure of the top end of the former High Street(Now Sun Street) and construction of a new replacement section of High Street to try and cope with traffic.

An unusual feature of Quarry Bank is its long steep High Street, hence "Bank", which slopes from the bottom end where it meets the neighbouring town of Cradley to the top at the junction with Thorns Road. Clinging to the hillside and varying from very steep to almost flat, it has changed little, except for modernisation of shop fronts. Major retail chains have bypassed the town, leaving just small independent traders and public houses.