Cradley (/ˈkreɪdli/) is a village in the Black Country and Metropolitan Borough of Dudley, in the county of the West Midlands, England, near Halesowen and the banks of the River Stour.

Previously the residents of Cradley had the right to graze their animals on that heath, subject to a small annual payment to the lord of the manor.

In 1473, following the forfeiture of it by James Butler, 5th Earl of Ormond, it passed to the Crown, and King Edward IV gave the largest part of it to his Queen.

The local Anglican church, St. Peter's, was built by a group of Dissenters who gathered together to form the Independent Congregational Society.

The Dissenting tradition remained strong, and many local Unitarian, Wesleyan, Methodist and Baptist churches flourished.

For hundreds of years nails had been made in the Black Country, and many thousands of men and women were employed in the trade.

The coal mining and chain making that made Cradley famous are now in the past, and most of the other iron-based trades have declined to a shadow of their former selves.

Many local pubs have been demolished in recent years,"The Black Horse" and "The Bulls Head" were both situated in Overend and have made way for private housing.

A number of pre-1900 homes remain in Cradley, but most of the housing stock dates from after the First World War, and there is a substantial mix of private and council properties.

Some improvements were made to the already-troubled estate in 1988 - these amounted to nothing more than new porches, secured accesses, landscaping, fenced-off gardens and new playgrounds.

Vandalism, graffiti, litter, drug-taking, burglaries and car crime were rife, and these problems had contributed to an increasing number of empty properties on the estate.

These homes were popular on their construction due to modern convenience that many of their occupants had never previously experienced, but within 20 years the estate was one of the most notorious in the West Midlands.

Many of the homes had fallen into disrepair, and the local area was plagued by drug-taking, theft, vandalism and car crime.