If you go to Roe Green on Saturday, you are in for a big surprise

If you have never been to Roe Green Village in Kingsbury you are in for a big surprise if you pop into the Centenary Village Day on Saturday - there really couldn't be a bigger contrast to the blocks of Wembley Park even if the two places were hundreds of miles apart. In fact Roe Green is about three miles from the Stadium.

Roe Green Village in 1920 (courtesy of Brent Archives)

 

Roe Green Village today

 Get there at 12 noon to support the youngster of the Brent Concert Band and either take a picnic or choose from  Caribbean, Indian vegetarian or Greek food while you enjoy the performance.

There will be plenty for children to enjoy including Punch and Judy and children's games and there will be a fly past by a De Havilland Tiger Moth biplane at about 3pm.

Visitors from other parts of Brent will be very welcome, but please travel by public transport (302 bus to the Grove Park stop is the nearest, or Jubilee Line to Kingsbury Station or 183 / 204 bus to the Valley Drive stop, then 10 minute walk across Roe Green Park). 

Background from local historian Philip Grant HERE

Wonderful Flying Machines - free talk and exhibition at Kingsbury Library

Did you know that Kingsbury was one of the main centres of the aircraft industry 100 years ago? 

This is a subject that local historian and former Fryent Ward councillor, Jim Moher, has been researching since he stepped down from Brent Council in 2014. He will be sharing the story of the people who made some of the best known planes of the First World War, and after, in an illustrated talk. This free "coffee morning" event is taking place at Kingsbury Library on Friday 30 June, from 11am to 12noon, and anyone who would be interested is welcome to attend.

Jim has also worked with Brent Museum on a small exhibition, also called Wonderful Flying Machines, which can be seen at Kingsbury Library from now until November 2017. Even if you cannot make it to the talk, you will find plenty of interesting pictures and information about the Airco factory, which employed 4,400 people (many of them women) by 1918, and the company set up at Stag Lane after the war by its principal designer and test pilot, Geoffrey De Havilland.