An Olympic Games tile mural – Quintain’s reply (what do you think?)

 Guest post by local historian Philip Grant in a personal capacity

 

The Olympic Torch tile mural, currently hidden away in the Bobby Moore Bridge subway.

 

When I sent a New Year request to Quintain’s Chief Executive Officer in 2022, it was two months before I received a full reply. This time, Quintain took just two working days to reply to my 1 January 2023 letter, which suggested that the Olympic Torch tile mural in the Bobby Moore Bridge subway should be put back on public display, in time for the 75^th anniversary of the 1948 London Olympic Games at Wembley.

 

I will ask Martin to attach a copy of Quintain’s letter below, so that you can read it if you wish to. It is almost 500 words long, but it can be summed up in a single word: “No”. I’ll include my reply to that letter at the end of this article.

 

There are two passages in the letter I received which suggest that Quintain are not inclined to uncover any more of the tile mural scenes in the subway between Wembley Park Station and Olympic Way:

 

‘… the lighting installation under Bobby Moore Bridge has full planning permission … and is not subject to any time limits.’

 

‘… we think that the lighting displays are an important part of our cultural offering now and for the future.’

 

The letter talks as though Quintain think that they own the Bobby Moore Bridge and the tile murals on the walls of its subway. In fact, they are owned by the London Borough of Brent (which, as far as I know, is not legally under Quintain’s ownership or control). 

 

But what do you, as citizens of the Borough, think about the idea of Quintain’s lighting displays, as against the tile murals celebrating Wembley’s sports and entertainment heritage, which are currently hidden behind the LED light panels? If you’ve not seen them, or can’t remember what they look like, here are a few reminders:

 

Part of the murals on the west wall of the subway, in 2012. (From a “Soundscape” web page)

 

 

A message on the west wall LED lighting panels in July 2021.

 

 Some of the mural scenes on the east wall of the subway, pre-2013.

 

 A lighting display, either side of the footballers mural, on the east wall of the subway, July 2021.

 

Would you prefer to see the heritage tile murals back on permanent display, or Quintain’s modern ‘cultural offering’ of lighting displays? Please feel free to give your honest views in a comment below.

 

My response to Quintain on 9 January suggested an alternative solution for the Olympic Torch mural, using their LED light panels. This is the text of my open letter (which was written to Quintain’s Head of Masterplanning and Design, with a copy to James Saunders, the CEO):-

 

Dear Julian, 

 

Thank you for your letter of 4 January 2023, in response to my New Year letter to James Saunders. 

 

I note the reasons given as to why Quintain will not be taking up my suggestion for uncovering, and putting on display, the Olympic Torch tile mural, on the east wall of the Bobby Moore Bridge subway, in celebration of the 75th anniversary of the 1948 London Olympic Games in July 2023.

 

You have set out your view on the history of the current lighting arrangements in the subway. I don’t think that it would be helpful to argue over this now, However, I do remember that when you and Quintain’s lighting designer came to a Wembley History Society meeting in October 2018, to set out your vision for the subway, several members suggested to you that the plans should be changed. 

 

Instead of putting all of the murals on the walls on display, with sufficient lighting in the subway for that purpose, as members had asked, you chose only a minor amendment to your original plans, which displayed just one of around a dozen tile mural scenes. The Society did agree that if just one scene was to be displayed, it should be the footballers playing at the “twin towers” stadium, which included the plaque unveiled by Bobby Moore’s widow in 1993.

 

It is disappointing that you seem to suggest it is Quintain’s intention to retain the lighting panels, which cover the rest of the tile murals in the subway, as a permanent feature. I am aware of the various planning and advertising consents. However, I would remind you that while Quintain’s ownership of the tile murals on the walls of Olympic Way is not in dispute, the Bobby Moore Bridge and the tile murals in its subway belong to the London Borough of Brent.

 

Since my suggestion for uncovering the Olympic Torch tile mural is not acceptable, I will offer an alternative suggestion, which I hope will meet with the approval of yourself and your colleagues at Quintain. 

 

This mural is covered with LED light panels, which can be programmed to show particular displays. As part of ‘the changing programme of lighting displays which has been integrated into the overall arts and cultural strategy at Wembley Park’, I would suggest that the panels over the Olympic Torch mural could be programmed to show an image of that mural, during at least July and August 2023. 

 

You already have a clear photograph of the mural, showing the design and its colours, which I included in my 1 January 2023 letter. The LED digital version of it could provide a temporary addition to the Wembley Park Art Trail this summer, adding to the celebration of the 75th anniversary of the 1948 Games, on the wall next to the displayed “footballers” mural - as marked on this image:

 

 

I look forward to hearing that this alternative suggestion will be taken up, as part of the Olympic Way local history enhancements for this important anniversary year.

 

 Thank you.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Philip Grant.

 

 

 

UPDATE FROM PHILIP GRANT (see January 13th comment below) 

 

How an image of the Olympic Torch mural could be displayed, in the same way as an advertisement in another subway.

An Olympic Games tile mural – let’s get it back on permanent display!

 Guest post by local Historian Philip Grant in a personal capacity

 

On 1 January 2022 I shared with you an open letter that I’d sent to Quintain’s Chief Executive Officer, seeking his agreement that his company would not seek to renew its advertisement consent, covering the tile murals on the walls of Olympic Way. I thought I’d made a good case, and was very pleased to receive a positive response two months later.

 

The sports tile murals on the east wall of Olympic Way, back on display in August 2022.

 

As well as uncovering the American Football, Rugby League and Ice Hockey tile mural scenes in 2022, Quintain’s Wembley Park company also commissioned a new mural. This replaced the missing section of the former “Live Aid” mural, beside the drummer which was the only section left of the original 1993 design. Since it was completed last November, Paul Marks’s “Reverb” mural has been added to the Wembley Park Art Trail.

 

The ”Reverb” tile mural, nearing completion in November 2022.

 

Regular readers will know that Wembley History Society has been campaigning since April 2018 to get Quintain and Brent Council to put all of the Bobby Moore Bridge tile murals, celebrating Wembley’s sports and entertainment heritage, back on permanent public display. Our first success was the mural scene in the subway, showing England footballers playing at the “twin towers” Wembley Stadium, which was left uncovered when Quintain (with Brent Council’s consent) replaced their vinyl advertising sheets in the subway with LED light panels.

 

The “Footballers” mural, flanked by LED light panels.

 

Now, 2023 provides an opportunity to get another of the subway’s mural scenes back on display. As well as marking the centenary of the original Wembley Stadium, the year will also be the 75^th anniversary of the 1948 London Olympic Games, for which Olympic Way was built. I hope that it will also see the mural celebrating those Games uncovered, in recognition of that important part of Wembley’s sporting heritage.

 

The Olympic Torch tile mural, beside a photograph from the 1948 Games opening ceremony.

 

So, this New Year I’ve sent another open letter to Quintain’s Chief Executive Officer, James Saunders. This is its full text:

 

This is an open letter

1 January 2023

Dear Mr Saunders, 

 

The 1948 Olympic Torch tile mural at Bobby Moore Bridge, Wembley Park.

 

Happy New Year! 2022 was a good year for Olympic Way, and I am hoping that, with your support, 2023 can be even better.

 

Following my 1 January 2022 letter to you, and your reply of 2 March, it was good to see the three sporting tile mural scenes on the east wall of Olympic Way back on permanent display from August 2022. They have been appreciated and enjoyed by residents and visitors ever since. More recently, the “Reverb” mural by Paul Marks, on the opposite wall beside the original drummer, has brightened up that space, although I must admit to some disappointment that it could not have related more closely with the “Live Aid” stadium concert theme.

 

During 2022, I have continued to work with Quintain’s Wembley Park team on projects to promote the history of Olympic Way. There are several additions to enhance the sharing of that history with visitors nearing completion, but I am writing to suggest another one.

 

In April 2023 we will celebrate the centenary of the original Wembley Stadium, and in July 2023 the 75^th anniversary of the 1948 London Olympic Games, for which Olympic Way was built. One of the tile murals in the Bobby Moore Bridge subway, the first scene on the left as you come down the steps from the station, was designed to celebrate that heritage at the start of the famous route to the stadium:-

 

This mural, which depicts an Olympic torch relay runner on his way to the stadium for the opening ceremony of the 1948 Games, with the Olympic flag behind him, is currently hidden behind LED light panels. My suggestion is that this mural scene should be uncovered, and put on display for the 75^th anniversary in July 2023 (and hopefully, permanently). 

 

The Olympic Torch mural is next to the “footballers” mural scene, which is already on display, so that it should not be too difficult to extend the lighting “frame” around that scene to include this mural celebrating the 1948 Olympic Games at Wembley Park, once the three or four light panels covering it, and their supports, have been removed.

 

I will email a digital copy of this letter to members of your team at Wembley Park, who I am already in touch with over other local history enhancements for Olympic Way. 

 

I look forward to hearing from you that displaying the Olympic Games mural scene will be another addition to those enhancements by the summer of 2023. Thank you.

 

Yours sincerely,

Philip Grant.

ANNIVERSARY TODAY: Celebrating 90 years of the Stanmore Line

Guest post by local historian Philip Grant

 

From the 1932 edition of “Metro-Land”

 

From 5am on 10 December 1932, members of the public had the first chance to travel on the Metropolitan Railway’s new branch line, to and from Wembley Park. It was called the Stanmore Line, but you will know it as part of the Jubilee Line. Its 90^th anniversary is perhaps a good time to share its story with you. 

 

The 1920s saw the rapid development of suburban housing estates around London, as people moved out of crowded conditions in the more central areas of the capital. Many of the new suburbs grew up around the railway out from Baker Street, in leafy countryside promoted as “Metro-Land” by the railway company. As districts like Wembley Park started to fill up with housing, developers were looking for new areas to build on, but they wanted good transport connections, to attract buyers for their homes.

 

An advert for Haymills’ Barn Hill Estate. (From the 1932 edition of “Metro-Land”)

 

In November 1929, the Metropolitan Railway Company announced that it wanted to build an extension from Wembley Park to Stanmore, which would give local commuters direct trains to London. Within twelve months, plans for the branch line were in place, and a price for the construction work of £168,628-17s-3d had been agreed with the contractors, Walter Scott & Middleton Ltd. The work began in January 1931.

 

A map showing the new extension to the Metropolitan Railway. (From the 1932 edition of “Metro-Land”)

 

The route could not go in a straight line, because Barn Hill was in the way, so the track had to curve around that before heading north-west, roughly parallel to and east of Honeypot Lane. This meant taking the railway along the valley of the Wealdstone Brook, which proved to be one of the project’s biggest problems. The brook meandered to and fro across the planned route, and first a concrete channel had to be constructed to divert the stream, so that it would run alongside the line around the base of the hill.

 

Diverting the brook, near what later became Uxendon Hill. (From the 1932 edition of “Metro-Land”)

 

Then, a long embankment had to be built down the valley, to provide a gentle gradient for the track to run along. This involved transporting thousands of tons of clay, dug out from the cutting where Kingsbury Station would be built, down a temporary single-track line. As can be seen in this photograph, a Ruston & Hornsby steam drag-line excavator was used to do the digging, and loading the clay into the trucks, pulled by an old Metropolitan Railway steam locomotive.

 

The excavator at work in Kingsbury, with Barn Hill in the distance. (From “Meccano Magazine”, 1934)

 

The work of shaping and compacting the embankment proved difficult. Heavy rain during the second half of 1931 caused delays, particularly because of machinery (including some “new” petrol and diesel excavators) slipping and sinking in the wet clay. And a second embankment had to be built, further up the line, through Canons Park, using the spoil dug out for the site of the station and sidings at Stanmore.

 

Work on the embankment, with bridges to take The Avenue over the brook and under the railway.
(From the 1932 edition of “Metro-Land”)

 

The work on the line had a very tight schedule, as the Metropolitan Railway had promised the Treasury, which was giving financial assistance through an unemployment relief scheme, that it would be open in twenty-one months. The “navvies” building the line worked from 7am to 5.30pm on weekdays, with a half-day to 12 noon on Saturday. For their 49½ hour week (excluding meal breaks) the labourers received 1/6d (one shilling and sixpence) an hour, with the skilled men such as bricklayers and carpenters getting up to 2/2d an hour.

 

By March 1932 the contractors still had most of the massive cutting between Kingsbury Road and Princes Avenue to excavate, and brought in double shifts. The night men worked from 6pm to 6.30am (with 1½ hours for meal breaks) from Monday to Saturday morning, so that the machinery was working 23 hours a day, with just half an hour between shifts for greasing and maintenance. 

 

 Work on the cutting north of Kingsbury Road, from the “Wembley News”, 12 August 1932.
(Brent Archives – local newspaper microfilms)

 

Neighbours in the recently built houses in Berkeley and Brampton Roads were not happy at their sleep being disrupted by the noise, but a deputation to the railway company from Kingsbury Council was told that it was unavoidable. The Treasury had agreed a twelve-week extension to the completion date for the Stanmore Line, and it had to open by December 1932.

 

On 9 December 1932 a large group of dignitaries and invited guests gathered at Wembley Park station to see the Minister of Transport declare the Stanmore Line open. The Metropolitan Railway’s Chairman, in top hat and tails, pulled a lever in the signal box (still there at the end of platform 3) to open the points, so that a special train could take them all on a tour of the new line and its stations, before returning to Baker Street for a celebratory dinner.

 

The Minister of Transport and other dignitaries visiting Kingsbury Station (note the design of the Metropolitan Railway sign!) on 9 December 1932. (Courtesy of London Transport Museum)

 

The total cost of building the Stanmore Line was around half a million pounds (including £142,791 for buying the land, and a separate contract for the signalling), equivalent to around £24.4m now. Paying passengers could travel on the line from the following morning. Stanmore, Canons Park and Kingsbury stations offered passengers 144 electric trains a day. Many were shuttle services to and from Wembley Park, but they included through trains to Baker Street in just 25 minutes. However, local residents complained at how expensive the fares were.

 

Season ticket prices from Kingsbury, from the “Wembley News”, 16 December 1932.
(Brent Archives – local newspaper microfilms)

 

The opening of the Stanmore Line did contribute to suburban development along its route, including a new neighbourhood called Queensbury, for which a station was opened in December 1934. By that time, the Metropolitan Railway lines had been taken over by the London Passenger Transport Board. Over time, this section of the Metropolitan Line became part of the Bakerloo Line (from 1939), before eventually being the northern end of the new Jubilee Line from 1 May 1979.

 

An advertisement for new homes near Kingsbury “Met” Station in 1934.

 

I hope you’ve enjoyed this trip along the history of our local railway line. It could be seen as nostalgia, but it’s also an important part of the story which shaped the northern part of Brent as it is today. And don’t be too jealous of the house prices and train fares of ninety years ago. If you were living then, you’d be comfortably off if your salary was £200 a year!

 

Philip Grant.

A new tile mural at Olympic Way, Wembley Park

Guest Post by local historian Philip Grant 

 

Back in March, I shared the news with you that tile mural scenes on the walls of Olympic Way (part of the Bobby Moore Bridge tile murals, celebrating Wembley’s sports and entertainment heritage) would be back on permanent public display by August (which they were).

 

The letter from Quintain’s Chief Executive Officer, agreeing not to seek an extension of the advertisement consent, which had seen these murals covered in vinyl advertising sheets since 2013, included a promise to replace a missing section of tiles on the wall beside the “drummer”. The drummer was the only surviving part of an original mural scene celebrating pop music concerts at Wembley Stadium, particularly the 1985 “Live Aid” concert.

 

The ”Live Aid” mural, before it was destroyed c.2006.

 

Quintain’s CEO said that they were ‘keen to reflect aspects of the original design, where possible’, and that they would ‘like to engage with you and the Wembley History Society to find the best solution for that area of the walls.’ In my March 2022 blog, I threw it open to the local community to suggest ideas for a design which would reflect the “Live Aid” or Wembley Stadium pop concerts theme.

 

The west wall area, beside the “drummer”, in need of new tiles, March 2022.

 

The “canvas” for the design was a difficult one, as TfL had taken a large section of the original mural away when they built steps down from the bus stop (now moved!) on the bridge in 2006. Instead of a rectangle, the blank space (after the poor replacement tiles had to be taken off in 2016, before they fell off) sloped down to nothing, in stages. 

 

I’m pleased to say that I did get some responses to the request for input on the replacement. One local resident suggested two possible artists, at least one of whom had designed murals for a local history community project at Cricklewood Station. A lady suggested a different piece of local cultural history for the design. And Gary, from Wembley, submitted his own draft idea, working from the photo of the original mural scene above.

 

Gary’s design idea for a replacement section of the “Live Aid” mural. (Courtesy of Gary!)

 

I passed all of the suggestions and ideas on to Wembley Park’s Cultural Director. As Quintain / Wembley Park would be commissioning and paying for the replacement mural, they had the final say, although they said they would let me see what they had in mind before going ahead with any design. In the end, they did not take up any of the offers I had put their way, and last summer I was sent a copy of a design from the artist Paul Marks, who they’d commissioned for the job. 

 

The Paul Marks design for the new tile mural beside the “drummer”.
(Courtesy of Quintain / Wembley Park)

 

I was told that I was being shown the design “in confidence”, and could not share the image until the new mural was finished. It was explained that the abstract design represents 'the sound wave (graphic equaliser) referencing the beat of the music'. My initial reaction was that this did not reflect the history of concerts at Wembley Stadium, such as “Live Aid”, and I suggested adapting Paul’s design to include some of the musicians from the original scene (Mark Knopfler and Freddie Mercury in this possible version).

 

One of the possible adapted designs I submitted.

 

The answer came back that this would not be possible, for a variety of reasons. The new mural would go ahead, as designed by Paul Marks, and by early November the wall was being prepared ready to receive the new coloured tiles.

 

Preparing the wall for the tiles. (This and top photos courtesy of Martin Francis)

 

Now the new tile mural is in place. It may no longer be a mural scene celebrating “Live Aid”, but it can be seen as the drummer sending out the beats of a rock anthem towards Wembley Stadium, where both the old and new versions of this famous venue have hosted some historic concerts. And it is certainly a much better sight than a bare concrete wall, or the “patched up” TfL version that I include a picture of in my March 2022 blog!

 

Philip Grant.