Fryent Way closed on Saturday June 1st for Champions League Final coach parking

 

I asked Brent Council about this notice as the number given was not responding. This is their information for residents:

On the 1st June Wembley stadium will be hosting the Champions League Final. There are two foreign teams in the final Dortmund and Real Madrid. UEFA have taken over all the official car parks for the event. Therefore, approximately 113 coaches will need to be parked on Fryent Way. Dortmund will park on Fryent Way, and to enable this to take place, the road will be closed to through traffic from around 23:00 on the 31st May to around 2am on the 2^nd June.* Traffic are to follow the diversion routes that will be signed. 

 

Fryent Way Car Park will be for staff parking only. All pre-booked.

 

* Note the timings given by the council for the beginning of the closure are different than those on the sign.  The closure of Fryent Way often results in long queues of traffic accessing Salmon Street through the restricted width entry point on the roundabout.

Philip Grant took this photograph 2011 when it was Barcelona that used Fryent Way for coach parking. Some came all the way from Spain while others picked up fans at the airport.

 

Burst main in Fryent Way cuts off water supplies in parts of Kingsbury and Wembley - repair now completed

 

 

Affinity Water informed customers registered with its text service  early this morning that following a mains burst in Fryent Way, Kingsbury that water had been cut off. The repairs team is has been working at the site and had repaired by about 12.15pm when I visited the site. Seemed to be a great working relationship with the foreman fist bumping the repair gang as they completed the repair and started to fill in the hole with a mountain of London clay.

Unfortunately a secondary burst was discovered  in the same area and was still being worked on this afternoon. Water in Wembley is still lower than normal pressure.

For latest information go to LINK where you register for text updates.

This is the latest I have. Repair carried out and testing progress - supply restored soon .

Get Ready for the Women’s Euros Football Final!

 

“Welcome to Wembley” road sign on Fryent Way, near Kingsbury Circle.

 

Guest post by Philip Grant

 

In a post about the Brent Culture Service programme of events for the UEFA Women’s Euros football tournament last month, I wrote this about the England team: ‘Can the “Lionesses” go one better than the England Men’s “Three Lions” team at Wembley last year? We will see!’

 

Well, after their excellent performances so far, especially their 4-0 win against Sweden in the semi-final on Tuesday evening, England’s “Lionesses” will be playing in the Final at Wembley Stadium on Sunday, so we will see. 

 

The England Women’s football squad after their semi-final win in Sheffield. (Image from the internet)

 

There are still some local events in conjunction with the Women’s Euros that you can enjoy, so here are some details:-

 

“Stadium for the Future: If I can't dance I don't want to be part of your revolution” will still take place on Friday 29 July, but some details have been changed since those I used in my June article. This music and dance party for women will now be at the Jason Roberts Foundation, in the Pavilion at Stonebridge Recreation Ground, Hillside, NW10 8LW, from 6pm to 9pm. The event is free, but booking is essential, so for more details and tickets please “click” on this Eventbrite link.

 

“Bend it Like Beckham, Be A Lioness!!”, an event for families with children, will be holding its final session on the wide section of pavement near Nando’s on Saturday afternoon, 30 July from 1pm to 5pm. The fun activities will include the chance to take a penalty kick in a football shoot-out with a controlled AI simulator, watch exclusive female football freestylers and take selfies with a lioness mascot!

 

“One two, one two” at Wembley Park Boulevard.

 

“One two, one two” is a Brent Museum and Archives outdoor heritage installation, where you can sit and hear inspirational stories from some of Brent’s women footballers of the past and present. This has been running throughout the Euros tournament at The Events Pad on Wembley Park Boulevard, near the western end of the stadium. There is also an outdoor exhibition showcasing the history of women’s football at White Horse Square, near Wembley Stadium Station. Both of these will continue until 30 July.

 

Also happening on Saturday 30 July, at Olympic Way from 12noon until 5pm is “The Supercompensation Cycle”. This is a holographic movement installation by visual artist Emma Smith, and will be accompanied by dancers who’ll invite the public to take part in a flash mob, doing the movements used by footballers as they warm-up for a match.

 

On Sunday 31 July, the day of the match itself, the tournament organisers are hoping that there will be a fan march from Fryent Way to Wembley Stadium. As Martin has revealed, Brent Council have arranged for a rolling road closure to facilitate this, and they hope it will be ‘a fun and colourful pageant ahead of an important sporting event.’ At present, its unsure whether this event will actually happen, as the main countries who have a tradition of fan marches to their football games, The Netherlands and Sweden, have both been knocked out of the Euros.

 

Swedish football fans marching to one of their women’s group games in Leigh. (Image from the internet)

 

Whether or not England fans march to the stadium (in friendly company with their French or German rivals) on Sunday, the tournament has been a great success. It has shown the high standard at which women now play football, and the enjoyment that playing “the beautiful game” at any level can provide. There should be no doubt now that girls of school age should be given the chance to play football if they want to.

 

Girls are already playing football in Brent. They are enjoying it, and with good coaching they are playing it well. With the UEFA Women’s Euros Final in Wembley, I hope that some of our local girl players will have the chance to accompany the “Lionesses” onto the pitch on Sunday as team mascots. What an inspiration that would be for them, just as watching the way the England women have played in this tournament has inspired so many!

 

The cup-winning Brent under-11 girl’s team, May 2022. (Photo by Chris Ampofo)

 

And finally, the Brent Museum and Archives “Women of the Match” exhibition, featuring photographs of Brent’s women of football by Roy Mehta, along with vintage photographs and football memorabilia, will continue to be on display at Brent Civic Centre until 6 November.

 

Whether you are lucky enough to be watching it at Wembley Stadium, or on television like me and millions of others, enjoy the UEFA Women’s Euros Final on Sunday.

 

Philip Grant.

Wembley Park road closures on July 31st to 'facilitate a sports procession' likely to create more controversy

 Following the controversial use of Fryent Country Park for car parking during the Ed Sheeran concert weekend recently, sharp eyed Philip Grant has spotted this notice in the Brent and Kilburn Times.

Philip commented:

One of the big events coming up at Wembley Stadium is the Women's EUROs football final at Wembley Stadium on 31 July. Will Fryent Country Park, or Fryent Way itself, be used as a car / coach park for that event?

Did anyone else see Brent's notice of a temporary prohibition of traffic, in the Legal Notices section on page 21 of last Thursday's "Brent and Kilburn Times"?

In order 'to facilitate a sports procession' (people having to walk from Fryent Way to the Stadium?), Brent proposes to close the following roads to traffic on 31 July:

'Fryent Way (between Broadview and The Paddocks)
The Paddocks (between Fryent Way and Forty Lane)
Forty Lane (between The Paddocks and Bridge Road)
Bridge Road (between Forty Lane and Brook Avenue)
Brook Avenue (between Bridge Road and Olympic Way)'

There is precedent for closing Fryent Way so that it could be used as a coach park for an international football match LINK.  So far Brent Council has not explained why Fryent Country Park was used as a car park recently and fears have been voiced that this set a precedent for similar future action. The action was particularly controversial because it was on the weekend of RMT strikes and appeared to seek to undermine the effectiveness of the action.

I will ask Brent Council for an explanation.

Fryent Way bee corridor - six weeks on

Philip Grant has sent this update to his earlier article LINK on the Fryent Way wild-flower planting. Although the verges may be looking less pretty, and more overgrown, they are still providing plenty of good habitat alongside a busy road.

 

Lush vegetation on Fryent Way opposite Wyndale Avenure

Fryent Way bee corridor at Broadview

Cycling alongside the bee corridor

Fryent Way closed 2pm-Midnight Today, Wednesday and Sunday due to increased number of fans at Wembley matches

Fryent Way back in  2011 when it was closed for the  Championship League match between Barcelona and Manchester United

 Statement from Brent Council

Due to the increase in the number of fans attending the EURO 2020 Semi-Final and Final at Wembley Stadium, Fryent Way will be closed and used for parking on Tuesday, Wednesday and Sunday this week.

This is to allow for more fan parking in designated zones and has been planned to help minimise disruption to residents. The closure will go into effect at 2pm with vehicles diverted via Kingsbury Road and Church Lane, and will be lifted at midnight. The road will have a central lane open for emergency vehicles only.

We would still encourage Ticketholders to travel by public transport or coach. Wembley Stadium will not provide parking for private vehicles during the event, except accessible parking.  Nearby street parking is reserved for local residents and businesses. 

Event Day parking restrictions will be active from 8am to midnight on main roads and from 10am to midnight on residential roads. If you have a paper Event Day permit, please make sure it is clearly displayed in the vehicle. Electronic permit holders do not need to display a permit.

 

2011 (Photos: Philip Grant)

 

Fryent Way – from A to Bee

 Guest Post by Philip Grant

Fryent Way is part of the busy A4140 main road, between Kingsbury Circle and the Salmon Street roundabout. But it has also become a route of a different kind.

 

When first conceived in the 1920s, it was known as Kingsbury Urban District Council’s Town Planning Road No.17. It was constructed in 1934/35, to open up farm land that All Souls College, Oxford, planned to sell for housing development. You can read more about this in Part 4 of The Fryent Country Park Story.

 

When, several years ago, Brent Council announced that they would stop cutting the grass in parts of our local parks, to create “wild flower meadows”, I admit that I was sceptical. It sounded like putting a positive “spin” on a decision to cut spending on the upkeep of our public open spaces!

 

 

But walking home from an appointment at my GP surgery on Thursday, I could see and enjoy the results. The grass verges alongside Fryent Way are now a bee and butterfly corridor, that encourages the wonderfully diverse wildlife from Fryent Country Park to travel into the heart of Kingsbury. 

 

Philip Grant.

72 years on – the Olympic marathon race at Wembley, 1948

Guest blog by Philip Grant

Two weeks ago, we celebrated the 1908 Olympic marathon race on its 112^th anniversary, with a video including newsreel film of the two leading runners, with a crowd in Wembley High Road watching them.

The Olympic marathon runners on a circuit of the track, before leaving Wembley Stadium, 7 August 1948.

When I wrote to Joe Neanor, who had made the video, he said that he had also recently run the 1948 Olympic Marathon race route – and he supplied a link to a colour film of the race, which took place 72 years ago today. That race started and finished in Wembley Stadium, and went out and back along Forty Lane, Fryent Way and Honeypot Lane to Stanmore, with a loop through the countryside of Hertfordshire. It was a tough course, with plenty of hills to climb!

 

The 1948 Olympic marathon course map and details. (Images from the internet)

If you watch the video below, it will take you back in time, and you will spot scenes you recognise, as they were in 1948, including Olympic Way and the Town Hall. As the runners head back towards Wembley, there are some key moments in the race, along Fryent Way with what are now the fields of Fryent Country Park in the background. And the finish in the stadium is almost as dramatic as that in the 1908 Olympic marathon!

As you can see the International Olympic Committee has banned live viewing of the video on Wembley Matters but you can view it on You Tube by clicking on the embedded link or use this LINK.

The Fryent Country Park Story - Part 4

The fourth in a series of guest posts by local historian Philip Grant

 

Welcome back, to our wander through the history of one of Brent’s best open spaces. If you missed the previous instalment, please “click” on Part 3 (which has “links” to Parts 1 and 2).

 

1. A view across the fields at haymaking time, with Kingsbury and Stanmore Common beyond.

The story so far has brought us up to the early 20^th century. The hay trade, which had been the main source of income for Kingsbury’s farmers, was declining by this time. In part, this was due to the import of cheaper foreign hay, but the introduction of motor vehicles was also having an increasing impact. New uses had to be found for many of the local pastures. Some, like Fryent Farm, had switched to keeping dairy cattle. 

George Withers, at Little Bush Farm, had become a breeder of, and dealer in, polo ponies. You might not imagine our area as a centre for playing polo, but in the early 1900s there were at least two local polo grounds. The Kingsbury Polo Club occupied land that is now the site of Roe Green Village, and part of Roe Green Park. There was also a polo ground, with stables and fields for the ponies, centred where Greenhill Way now stands (which is why the road across this hill is called The Paddocks!). The First World War put an end to the polo clubs, after their ponies were requisitioned by the army in 1915.

 

2. Little Bush Farm, in a postcard from c.1920.  

(Courtesy of the late Geoffrey Hewlett)

After the war, the spread of suburban housing would bring about greater changes. When Wembley Park was chosen, in 1921, as the site for the British Empire Exhibition, Blackbird Hill, Church Lane and Forty Lane were all converted from narrow country byways to wide modern roads, to make the exhibition easier to reach. This better access to the area also attracted property developers. In 1923, Wembley Golf Course was purchased by Haymills Ltd, who were soon building streets of detached homes on the southern slopes of Barn Hill.

 

3. The cover of the 1922 "Metro-Land" booklet.  

(Wembley History Society Collection at Brent Archives)

Around 27 million visitors came to the British Empire Exhibition in 1924/25. Many were attracted by the pleasant countryside, close to London. The Metropolitan Railway was already promoting the districts along its line as “Metro-Land”, a healthy place to live, from which the man of the house could commute “to town”. Wembley Council could see the danger of overdevelopment, and in 1927 purchased 50 acres at the top of the hill from Haymills, to be Barn Hill Open Space.

In 1929, the Metropolitan Railway announced that it would build a branch line from Wembley Park. Construction began on this Stanmore Line in January 1931 [“click” on the link for full details]. The route curved around Barn Hill and through Uxendon Farm, which had already been demolished to make way for it, on its way to Kingsbury.

 

4. Uxendon Farm, about to be demolished in 1929.

 (Brent Archives online image 0498)

Haymills had already purchased more land, to the north of the hill, from Preston Farm. These were the fields known as Upper and Lower Hydes, and Bugbeards – the latter may seem an odd title, but this field name was first recorded in the 15^th century, and a document from 1642 lists five men in Harrow Parish with the surname Bugbeard! In 1934, Haymills stopped building in the area, and sold their undeveloped land to George Wimpey & Co. 

On the Kingsbury side of our future country park, Masons Field in Old Kenton Lane had been sold to the London General Omnibus Company in 1927, for a sports ground. Just along the lane, another field beside the Junior Mixed and Infants’ School (now Kingsbury Green) was acquired by Kingsbury Council as a recreation ground. Little Bush Farm had closed by 1930, while Hill Farm had become a horse-riding establishment, the Premier School of Equitation.

5. Hill Farm and its pond, in Salmon Street, c.1920.  

(Brent Archives online image 0480)

Having established the Barn Hill Open Space, Wembley’s Parks Committee had to make sure it was looked after. In March 1935, a report from the Council’s Surveyor referred to an annual loss of “decayed and rotting trees”, and suggested a regular programme of tree planting. One of his proposed schemes for Barn Hill was to ‘plant approximately 4 dozen Lombardy Poplars in the form of an avenue leading from the top of the hill to the gate on the east side adjoining Town Planning Road No.17 (Kingsbury).’ Some of those poplars are still a skyline feature.

 

6. Part of the Kingsbury U.D.C. 1926 Town Planning Scheme map. 

 (With thanks to Gareth Davies)

Proposed future main roads were something that local Councils had to include in the town planning schemes the government asked them to prepare in the 1920s. Kingsbury had been a separate Council area, until it became part of Wembley Urban District in 1934. Its T.P. Road No.17 was built in 1934/35, and named Fryent Way. Another of the new roads included in the 1926 scheme would have run from Slough Lane, by Bush Farm, to Fryent Way, and the kerb stones for that junction are still in place, just south of Valley Drive! All of the land between the Stanmore Line and Salmon Street was zoned for future housing development.

 

7. Bush Farm in a postcard from c.1930. (Brent Archives online image 0479)      

By the end of 1935, Wimpeys already had a planning application approved to build two new streets, with 362 houses, between Uxendon Hill and Fryent Way. As the map extract below shows, housing development was also spreading northwards on the other side of Barn Hill. Salmon Estates Ltd had put in an outline application to build homes at 8 per acre, on all the land beyond Salmon Street zoned for housing. Then, in January 1936, they submitted detailed plans for houses on both sides of Fryent Way, north from the junction with The Paddocks.

8. Extract from the 1935 O.S. map, showing Salmon Street and the Hill Farm land due for development.

The rapid spread of suburban housing around London had given rise to the idea of a “Green Belt”. In 1934, Parliament gave Middlesex County Council powers to acquire land for this purpose, and during the following year it worked out, with local councils, how such purchases could be financed. The area which is now our country park was identified as land suitable for such a scheme.

In early 1936, the County Council put a compulsory purchase order on the Wimpey’s land north of Barn Hill. There was a court battle over how much compensation the developer should receive. When this was settled in 1938, Wembley Council contributed 25% of the cost, and the fields were added to its Barn Hill Open Space, with some used as sports grounds.

In March 1936, Wembley’s Planning Committee “disapproved” the Salmon Estates planning applications, on the grounds that the land was now reserved for open space purposes. Again, it was 1938 before the purchase of the fields in Kingsbury Parish from All Souls College was finalised, and they became Middlesex C.C.’s Fryent Way Regional Open Space. As part of the Council’s policy, the existing farm tenancies on the land were allowed to continue.

You may think that this is the end of the story, and that things have stayed the same on our open space since the late 1930s. However, there will be more to discover next weekend, if you wish to!

Philip Grant

LINKS TO OTHER ARTICLES IN THIS SERIES

History of Fryent Country Park – Part 1

History of Fryent Country Park – Part 2

History of Fryent Country Park – Part 3

History of Fryent Country Park – Part 4

History of Fryent Country Park – Part 5

History of Fryent Country Park – Part 6

History of Fryent Country Park – Bunker Special