Can you help solve the Wembley Girl mystery?

 Guest post, by local historian Philip Grant:-

Wembley History Society receives email enquiries from around the country, and the world, about a wide variety of aspects of our area’s past. Some we can answer easily, from information we already hold. Others take research, which can uncover some fascinating stories, like that of a 1960s music shop, or a remarkable Indian lawyer who lived here. Occasionally, we receive a query that we can’t answer. The origin of a “Wembley Girl” figure is one of those, which is why I am writing this, to ask if you can help, please!

 

Wembley Girl’s face.

 

Our enquirer and her late husband bought the Wembley Girl figure ‘many moons ago’ from an antique dealer who claimed, ‘she is rather rare’. The painted figure is around 15 inches (38cm) tall, and the email sending its photograph said the owner would love to know more about the story behind this model, where and when (and by whom) she was made, and what her connection with Wembley is.

 

The Wembley Girl figure.

 

There is no doubt that the figure is a “Wembley Girl”, because that name is clearly shown on the base of the model:-

 

There is no makers name or mark on the base, and no stamp to show where the figure was made (if it was made outside this country, it might have had “Made in ….” stamped underneath). The only other clue is the number “24”. This could be a number referring to the mould it was cast from, or if it was a limited-edition model, the number of that particular piece. Or it could represent the year 1924.

 

Wembley would certainly have been widely known in 1924, because that was the year the British Empire Exhibition (“BEE”) was staged here. 17 million people came to Wembley Park for the BEE in 1924, and most of them went away with a souvenir of some sort. Hundreds of different picture postcards and a wide variety of small china ornaments were available from stalls around the exhibition grounds.

 

 

Empire Stadium souvenir cup. (From Alan Sabey’s collection)

 

 

A BEE souvenir ornament, made by Cauldon Potteries Ltd. (From Alan Sabey’s collection)

 

But what connection could the Wembley Girl figure, which would have been a more expensive item than these mass-produced souvenirs, have had with the BEE? She certainly appears to be making an exhibition of herself, although that would go against the generally wholesome theme of the BEE! This is just speculation, but my guess would be that, if the figure did come from the BEE in 1924, it was connected in some way with the Pears’ Palace of Beauty.

 

An advertisement for the Pears’ Palace of Beauty. (Source: Brent Archives)

 

This ornate building, in the BEE’s Amusement Park, was created by the House of Pears to promote their soap, which they said had been ‘for 130 years the servant of beautiful women.’ Inside the building were 10 tableau rooms from different ages, and inside each (behind a glass screen, to protect them from admiring visitors) was an actress, styled and dressed as one of the most beautiful women in history.

 

The actresses, playing characters from Helen of Troy and Cleopatra, to Nell Gwynne, Sarah Siddons and Miss 1924, worked in pairs, sharing the 13-hour days that the Palace was open in shifts. They worked 10am to 1pm and 7pm to 11pm one week, and 1pm to 7pm the next, for £5 a week. They were one of the biggest attractions in the 40-acre Amusement Park, with 750,000 visitors paying one shilling and threepence each to see them in the 1924 season.

 

Postcard showing the entrance to the BEE Amusement Park. (Source: Brent Archives)

 

The Wembley Girl figure may have been inspired by the women in the Palace of Beauty (perhaps Miss 1924?), but she was not an official souvenir. Pears’ only offered souvenir bars of their soap, and a set of postcard pictures of the beautiful women (in their costumes), in their gift shop. If Wembley Girl was made for the BEE, it is more likely that she was sold in a kiosk close to the Palace of Beauty, for men who had been to the Pears’ exhibit, but wanted a souvenir which was a bit more “racy”.

 

Pears’ Palace of Beauty at the BEE Amusement Park in 1924. (Image from the internet)

 

If you know anything about the origin of the Wembley Girl figure, or even recognise its style and who might have made it, please provide the information in the comments below. If you are tempted to make any rude comments, about what her owner describes as her ‘rather deshabille’ appearance, please don’t! 

 

Thank you.

Philip Grant.

Three Lakes at Wembley Park

Many thanks to local historian Philip Grant for this guest post:

 A comment on a recent item about “ A Tour of Wembley Park’s Green and Open Spaces” LINK said: 

‘I would love to see where the “lake” is going to appear. Just thought, with all the building work there will only be space for a large puddle in one of the many potholes in Wembley...Lake Water Butt.’   

What better opportunity for me to share with you the story of two previous lakes at Wembley Park, and one which is promised for the near future.

In May 1894 the Metropolitan Railway Company opened Wembley Park Station, to serve the new pleasure grounds which were brainchild of its chairman, Sir Edward Watkin. The gardens were designed to entice people from crowded inner London (travelling by train, of course) to spend their leisure time in this beautiful setting. Apart from the promise of a tower, taller than Eiffel’s in Paris, the attractions included a man-made lake, fed by the Wealdstone Brook, where visitors could hire rowing boats.

Lake 1 OS map with Wealdstone Brook and lake

Wembley Park, with lake and tower, early 1900's

Wembley Park’s pleasure grounds were very popular at first, but the tower (which became known as Watkin’s Folly) never got above its first stage, and was demolished in 1906/07. Before 1914, part of the grounds were being used as a golf course, and there were plans that the site would become Wembley’s next “garden village” suburb. Then the Great War came.

In 1921, the vacant pleasure grounds (with their excellent rail access) were chosen as the site for the British Empire Exhibition. When the layout for this vast enterprise was designed, the existing lake was filled in, providing a garden which welcomed visitors entering from the station, and a new lake was constructed.

Lake 2, BEE plan with lake and rivers

The new artificial lake, across the east-west axis of the site, was not just an attractive feature for recreational use. It was designed to collect and store water running off of the exhibition’s huge concrete buildings, so that the Wealdstone Brook would not flood after heavy rain.

The BEE lake looking towards the Indian Pavilion, 1924

After the exhibition closed in 1925, most of the pavilions of Empire nations were demolished. A vast swimming pool / sports arena was constructed at the western end of the lake, in time for the British Empire Games in 1934 (the road along one side of Wembley Arena is still called Lakeside Way). The remains of the rest of the lake survived for many years, but were eventually filled in to provide car parks for the old Wembley Stadium.

Wembhey Stadium, reflected in the BEE lake, after demolition of tge Australia and Canada pavilions, c1930

There is no lake at Wembley Park now, but in the latest version of Quintain’s masterplan for the redevelopment of the ex-Wembley Stadium land they bought in 2002, there will be a new lake, as part of a seven acre (not seven hectare, as sometimes claimed by Brent Council) park. As the lake might be difficult to spot on the coloured plan below, I have marked it with a yellow arrow.

Lake 3 (arrowed) on Quintain's master plan for Wembley, 202

This plan, and the image below, were part of a talk given to Wembley History Society in January 2018 by Julian Tollast, Quintain’s Head of Masterplanning and Design. Plans can, of course, be changed as developments progress, but if Julian’s vision for the new lake (in more or less the same place as the eastern end of the 1924 BEE lake) goes ahead, this is what it would look like in around 2027:-

Quintain's vision of the new park and lake

An existing road, Engineers Way, will cut across the lake and park. The park is a much smaller feature for the number of local residents than the parks which local Councils provided for their ratepayers in the past, although the “lake” would be bigger than a ‘Water Butt’. To his credit, Mr Tollast is conscious of history, and of the part played by the landscape architect Humphry Repton in shaping this area, which was named Wembley Park because of his work here in the 1790’s. He plans to use a landscaping feature favoured by Repton to reduce the view of the road from the park; a ha-ha (don’t laugh!).

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