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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