Thank you to everyone who had a go at last weekend’s Wembley History Society Christmas Picture
Quiz, 2022. It was a chance to take a short
break from a number of more serious issues covered by “Wembley Matters”, and I
hope you enjoyed it.
I included a clue, ‘in 1923’, in question 2, so hopefully at least those
of you who remember the original Wembley Stadium (demolished twenty years ago)
will have spotted that the men in the photograph were building one of Wembley’s
“twin towers”.
Workers building the concrete walls of the Stadium, winter 1922/23. (Screenshot from an old film)
Next year will mark the centenary of the building which made the name of
our district famous around the world. We will celebrate that in 2023, but I
wanted to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the workers who built this
reinforced concrete landmark in just 300 days (without the benefit of modern
machinery, or hard hats!).
Were there a few of the pictures that you didn’t know the answers to? If
that’s the case, you have the chance over the Christmas / New Year break to
discover more about Wembley’s past. I’ve included “links” with most of the
answers, which will take you to illustrated articles giving more information,
if you want to take advantage of them.
If you were feeling competitive, you can now see how many of the
questions you got the right answers to. There are no prizes, but if you want to
publish your score out of ten (just to let others know how well, or badly, you
did), you are welcome to add a comment below – only honest claims, please!
The
fourth part of Philip Grant's series on the history of Wembley Park
Thank you for joining me again, on
our journey through Wembley Park’s history. Part 4 is here, if you missed it. We are moving
into times within the life of many of you, so please feel free to add your own
memories to (or correct, if necessary!) anything that I write from now on.
1. Wembley Park, seen from above the station, late summer
1948. (Britain from Above image EAW018314)
After the Olympic Games, in the
summer of 1948, Wembley Park returned to “business as usual”. The Palace of
Industry was a warehouse for His (then Her) Majesty’s Stationery Office,
storing stocks of its publications, from Acts of Parliament to the Highway
Code, and millions of envelopes and paperclips for the Civil Service. A wide
variety of businesses used other surviving buildings in the former (British
Empire) Exhibition grounds.
2. Two adverts from the early 1950's for businesses at
Wembley Park. (Brent Archives – local directories)
The Empire Pool’s swimming bath was
never used again after the Olympics, and the arena became a year-round sports
and entertainment venue. The Wembley Lions ice hockey team played there
throughout the 1950s, but ice pantomimes also began here
in 1950. Other regular annual fixtures from that year were the All-England
Badminton Championships and the Harlem Globetrotters basketball matches.
Six-day cycle races, and amateur and professional boxing, also featured in the
programme, together with the Horse of the Year Show from 1959.
3. Harlem Globetrotters basketball and six-day cycling action
at the Empire Pool, 1950s. (From old books)
In 1955, a second television
channel was launched in Britain, funded by showing adverts. The ITV franchise
for weekdays in the London area was awarded to Associated-Rediffusion, who
bought the former film studios in Wembley Park Drive to use for making
programmes. They soon had more ambitious plans, and built the largest TV studio
in Europe, next door to their existing premises. Wembley Park’s Studio 5 opened
in June 1960 with “An Arabian Night”, a spectacular 3-hour show which was
broadcast live across the whole ITV network.
4. A cutting from the "Wembley Observer", about
plans for the new studio. (From the late Richard Graham)
More building work was going on
nearby, with several new office blocks appearing on either side of Olympic Way,
close to Wembley Park Station. Apart from that, however, much of the former
British Empire Exhibition site remained in drab industrial and commercial use,
with firms such as Johnson Matthey & Co (metals) and Fisher Foils among
them. Even the former Neverstop Railway station in North End Road was used, as
a car repair workshop.
5. South Way, Wembley Park, looking towards the stadium,
1960. (Brent Archives online image 4841)
6. North End Road in the 1960s, with the old Neverstop
Railway Station, and Danes Court flats beyond. (Wembley
History Society Collection - Brent Archives online image 9502)
My own first memory of Wembley is
arriving on a chartered train, packed with boys from East Sussex, in April
1959. Schoolboy football international matches had begun at the stadium in 1950
(women’s hockey internationals, to attract groups of schoolgirls, started the
following year), and I was one of the 95,000 who had come to watch England v.
West Germany. We won 2-0, but I have fonder memories of another Wembley match
between the two countries, seven years later, which I saw (in black and white)
on a television set at home with my family!
7. A 1963 poster and 1966 programme for famous events at
Wembley Stadium. (Internet / Terry Lomas)
Wembley Stadium had been fitted
with a new roof in 1963, so that all spectators would be undercover. This did
not apply to events where part of the crowd was “on the pitch”, such as the
memorable boxing match in June that year. Henry
Cooper, who
lived in Wembley, knocked down Cassius Clay (later known as Muhammed Ali), but
still lost the contest. The 1960s also saw a new sport come to Wembley Park,
with the opening of a 24-lane ten pin bowling alley, the Wembley Bowl and
Starlight Restaurant, between the arena and Empire Way. This was converted to a
Squash Centre in 1974, and later to a bingo club.
8. Wembley Conference Centre, in Empire Way near Wembley Hill
Road, c.1990s. (Image from the internet)
Sir Arthur Elvin had died in 1957,
and by the 1970s his Wembley Stadium company had become a subsidiary of the
British industrial conglomerate, BET. They set about adding to Wembley Park’s
attractions, with a new hotel, large exhibition halls and the Conference
Centre. This opened in 1977, just in time to stage the Eurovision Song Contest.
It hosted many other major events including, from 1979, the Benson & Hedges
Masters Snooker Tournament. From the 1970s, the stadium car parks were home to
the popular Wembley Stadium Sunday Market.
9. Wembley Stadium Sunday Market, c.1990s. (Image from the internet)
Popular music shows at the Empire
Pool had begun in 1959, with the first single act concert by The Monkees in
July 1967. Wembley hosted its first Stadium concerts in the early 1970s, and
within a few years had become one of the “must play” venues for top performers
on their tours. In July 1985, it staged the Live Aid charity concert, raising
funds for famine relief in Africa, watched on television by an estimated 1.9
billion people around the world. The “Free Nelson
Mandela” 70th
birthday concert in 1988 helped to bring about his release from prison, and
Brent’s Mayor was able to welcome him to Wembley for an anti-apartheid concert
in 1990.
10. The logo for Live Aid in 1985, and the 1988 birthday
concert for Nelson Mandela. (From the internet)
The former Palace of Engineering
was demolished in the early 1980s, to make way for more modern commercial and
retail buildings. Under the planning agreement for this development, Brent
Council adopted Olympic Way (a private road, built by Wembley Stadium in 1947/48)
as a public highway. In 1991, when Wembley was a key part of England’s bid for
UEFA’s Euro ’96 football tournament, the Council decided to pedestrianize this
main route to the stadium.
As part of this scheme, a wide
subway was created under Bridge Road, to give people on foot a safer journey to
Olympic Way from Wembley Park Station. The walls of the subway were decorated
with specially designed ceramic tile
murals,
celebrating sports and entertainment events from the history of the stadium and
arena. Named “The Bobby Moore Bridge”, the new structure was opened in
September 1993, by the widow of England’s 1966 World Cup-winning captain, who
had died from cancer a few months earlier.
11. Two of the tile mural scenes in the Bobby Moore Bridge
subway. (Photos by Philip Grant, 2009)
Wembley Stadium had been made
all-seated (following the report on the 1989 Hillsborough tragedy), so that
when Euro ’96 was staged in June 1996 it had a capacity of 76,500. England
played all three of their group-stage matches there, including a 2-0 victory
over Scotland. Wembley also saw the host nation’s quarter and semi-final games,
and the final, won 2-1 by the reunited Germany v. the Czech Republic, after
beating England on penalties in the semis.
12. Fans heading up Olympic Way for the England v. Scotland
match, June 1996. (Image from internet)
Even before Euro ’96, Wembley
Stadium was showing its age, and with its cast reinforced concrete structure,
it was difficult to make major improvements. In 1995, the Sports Council
announced that it would hold a competition to decide where a new National
Football Stadium should be built. The prize would be £120 million, of National
Lottery funding, towards the cost of building the new venue.
As well as other English cities, a
number of boroughs in London wanted the new stadium sited in their area.
Luckily, they were persuaded that Wembley had the best chance of success for
the capital, and the final competition shortlist was between bids from
Birmingham, Manchester and London. In the end, it was the world-famous name of
Wembley, and the heritage of “the Venue of Legends”, built up since 1923, which
won the day!
Next weekend, in the final part of
this series, we will reach the 21st century, and see how the new
stadium, and other developments, changed the face of Wembley Park. I hope you
will join me then.
Please feel free to add your
memories, questions or comments in the box below.
The fourth part of Philip Grant's series on the history of Wembley Park
We left Part 3 (“click” if you
missed it) just after the British Empire Exhibition had closed in 1925. Its
site and the buildings on it had cost around £12m (equivalent to over £700m
now), but the Liquidator’s attempt to sell them at auction as a single lot was
withdrawn, with the highest offer at £350k. It was later bought for just £300k
by Jimmy White, a speculator who paid 10% of this “up front”, with the balance
payable as the buildings were sold off.
Many of the
people who worked at the exhibition had been unemployed ex-servicemen. Arthur
Elvin was one of these, working in a cigarette kiosk in 1924. He saved as much
of his £4 10s wages as he could, and leased eight kiosks himself when the
exhibition reopened in 1925, selling sweets and souvenirs as well. He bought and
demolished his first small building on the site in 1926, selling the metal for
scrap and rubble as hardcore for road construction. After reinvesting the
profits several times, within a year he offered £122,500 for the stadium.
1. Wembley Stadium, after demolition of the BEE pavilions,
c.1927. (Image from the internet)
Elvin had paid
£12,500 deposit to White, with the balance payable over ten years, when in
August 1927 the Official Receiver demanded it all within a fortnight! Jimmy
White had only ever paid the initial £30k for the buildings, gambled away the
rest, and then shot himself. By working together with friends and banks, Elvin
managed to complete the purchase. Aged 28, he was the managing director of the
Wembley Stadium and Greyhound Racecourse Company Ltd.
2. Greyhound and speedway racing events at Wembley Stadium. (Images from old
books on the stadium)
Few had thought
the stadium could be saved from demolition, with the Cup Final as its only
annual booking. The company name is a clue to how Elvin believed it could be
made profitable. He introduced greyhound racing, three times a week, from 1928,
and motorcycle speedway, with his Wembley Lions team, from 1929, both with
regular crowds in excess of 60,000. The pre-match entertainment he put on for
the football final, including community singing (“Abide with me”), attracted
the Rugby League cup final in 1929, with Wembley as its home ever since.
With greyhounds
the only winter attraction, Elvin saw another possibility to keep Wembley’s 400
employees in full-time work during the early 1930s depression, after watching
an ice hockey game at Earls Court in 1932. His plans crystalized when the
second British Empire Games were planned for London in 1934. Working with Sir
Owen Williams, who had designed the stadium, the Empire Pool was constructed of
reinforced concrete in just nine months.
3. L-R, Duke of Gloucester, Sir Owen Williams and Arthur
Elvin at the Pool opening. (From an old book)
The Pool was
opened on 25 July 1934, just in time for the swimming and diving events of the
Games. The boxing and wrestling competitions followed, in a ring on a bridge
across the pool. Then the public could enjoy the pool for swimming throughout
the summer. As soon as the speedway season finished in October, its fans could
support a new Wembley Lions ice hockey team. The pool was drained for the
winter, and the rink on a floor above it could be used for public skating, when
the Lions or a second team, the Wembley Monarchs, were not playing.
4. A 1934 Empire Pool advert, and swimmers enjoying it. (From a Pool
programme, and an old book)
5. Ice hockey programme, and a match at the Empire Pool, both
late 1930s. (From old programme and book)
While Arthur
Elvin was making Wembley Park a major sporting venue, the exhibition buildings
that had not been demolished were put to new uses. The former Lucullus Restaurant,
alongside Wembley Park Drive, became a film studio. The huge Palaces of
Industry and Engineering were split up into units for manufacturing or
warehouses. Elvin used the Palace of Arts as storage space, for the platform
which supported the ice rink, and the banked timber track used for cycling
races inside the Empire Pool, but it was soon to be required for another
purpose.
In the late
1930s, Germany under Adolf Hitler aimed to become a dominant force. The Empire
Pool hosted the European Swimming Championships in 1938, and Germany easily
topped the medal table. After war broke out the following year, Wembley Council
took over the Palace of Arts as the centre for its A.R.P. organisation.
When thousands of British troops were evacuated from Dunkirk in May 1940, many
were brought to the stadium, which was used as an emergency dispersal centre.
Refugees from France, Belgium and Holland followed, and were given temporary
accommodation in the Empire Pool, before being rehomed across the country.
6. A Civil Defence review at Wembley Stadium, October 1942. (Image from
Brent Archives)
Wartime parades
and reviews made use of the stadium, and other events, including greyhound
racing, continued throughout the war. Service men and women could attend free.
There were many charity matches, like an England v. Scotland football
international in February 1944, with King George VI, Princess Elizabeth and
Field Marshall Montgomery in the Royal Box, which raised a record £18,000.
Others were inter-service games, including baseball and American Football between teams
from the U.S. ground and air forces in 1943/44, ahead of D-Day.
The stadium was
used as a landmark by the Luftwaffe, on their way to raids north of London, but
Wembley Park was also a target. A German airman, whose bomber was shot down
locally, had a map marking the location of an R.A.F. storage depot (the former
Palace of Industry!). Bombs hit the stadium on three occasions, and a V1
“doodlebug” landed on the kennels, killing a number of greyhounds, in 1944.
Each Christmas, during the war, Mr and Mrs Elvin and their stadium team
provided a free Christmas dinner for hundreds of local service personnel who
could not get home. In 1945, Elvin was awarded the M.B.E. for his wartime
efforts.
There had been
no Olympic Games in 1940 or 1944, and when London was invited to stage the 1948
Olympiad, the Government almost declined the offer because of post-war
austerity. Then, at the start of 1947, Elvin offered his facilities at Wembley
Park, free of charge, so the Games could go ahead. The Stadium company also
agreed to build a new access road from the station. Until early 1948, about one
third of the labour on this project was provided by German prisoners of war.
The new road, named Olympic Way, cost £120k and
opened in July.
8. German P-o-W’s at work on Olympic Way in 1947. (Still image
from a film made at the time)
9. Wembley Town Hall, in Forty Lane, decorated for the
Olympics in July 1948. (Brent Archives image 3829)
The Borough of
Wembley really got behind the Games. Many residents took paying guests into
their homes, as there were few hotels for spectators to stay at. Entertainments
for visitors were arranged by the Council. A school in Alperton was one of
those used to house male competitors, and the families of several pupils played
host to some of their female team mates.
10. The Olympic Games opening ceremony at Wembley Stadium. (Brent Archives,
1948 Olympics Report)
On 29 July 1948,
packed crowds watched the opening ceremony. Boy Scouts from Wembley carried the
names of the 59 countries taking part, in front of their teams in the parade.
Thousands of residents lined the streets, as a relay of local runners carried
the Olympic torch on its way to the stadium, ready to light the flame that
marked the start of the Games.
11. Olympic Way, with crowds going to the stadium for the
Games, July 1948. (Image from the internet)
For over two
weeks, Wembley Park and its new Olympic Way were full of visitors to this great
sporting occasion, and they were not disappointed. New heroes emerged, like
Emil Zatopek of Czechoslovakia, who won gold in the 10,000 metres and finished
second in the 5,000m by just 0.4 of a second, and Arthur Wint, winning
Jamaica’s first ever Olympic gold medal in the 400m, after silver in the 800m. Housewife
and mother, Fanny Blankers-Koen of The Netherlands was the heroine of the
Games, winning four athletics golds.
The Olympic Games (1948) – BFI / National Archives
Elvin, now Sir
Arthur, must have enjoyed the event that made “his” venue the centre of the
sporting world. As well as the opening and closing ceremonies, the stadium
hosted the athletics events, football and hockey finals and the show jumping
competition. The Empire Pool staged the swimming and diving, the water polo
final, and then, after bridging the pool again, the boxing bouts. Part of the
Palace of Engineering was used for the fencing competitions, and the Palace of
Arts was taken over by the BBC, to become the Broadcasting Centre for the
Games.
Could Wembley
Park ever match the “high” of the 1948 Olympic Games again, or would it simply
be forgotten as the years moved on? There will be more of its story to discover
next weekend, and I look forward to sharing it with you.
Please use the
comments section below if you have any questions from the series so far, or if
you have information on Wembley Park that you would like to share, with me and
others.
