Humphry Repton returns to Wembley Park

 Guest post by local historian Philip Grant

 

 

I wrote about the work of the landscape gardener Humphry Repton in Part 1 of The Wembley Park Story, as part of “local history in lockdown” in May 2020. He turned farmland at Wembley owned by Richard Page, into a landscaped country estate around a house previously called “Wellers”, in 1793. Repton had firm views on what such estates should be called:

 

‘There is at present no word by which we express that sort of territory adjacent to a country mansion, which being too large for a garden, too wild for pleasure ground, and too neat for a farm, is yet often denied the name of a park, because it is not fed by deer. I generally waive this distinction, and call the wood and lawns, near every house, a park, whether fed by deer, by sheep, or heavy cattle.’

 

That’s how Wembley Park got its name, and it was, as Repton said in a letter to a friend in May 1793, ‘a most beautiful spot near Harrow’. 

 

Extract from a letter written by Humphry Repton on 6 May 1793. (From a copy at Brent Archives)

 

I don’t know how many times, if ever, Humphry Repton came back to Wembley Park after that, before his death in 1818. But a celebration of his career in 2018 by The Gardens Trust has led to his return this week. 

 

As part of their “Sharing Repton” events, a bust of the famous landscape designer, by the sculptor Hannah Northam, was donated to the Trust by Haddonstone. It was decided to award this as a prize in a competition open to places across the country where Repton had worked – and the winner was … Wembley Park!

 

Last Wednesday afternoon, I was one of a small crowd standing at the corner of Elvin Gardens, beside Humphry Repton Lane. Some of the builders working nearby were giving us puzzled looks, but seemed even more puzzled by a cloaked figure, wearing a Quintain hard hat.

 

 

The mystery figure was revealed when we were joined by the (even more beautifully robed) Deputy Mayor of Brent, Cllr. Orleen Hylton, who unveiled the bust of Humphry Repton.

 

 

As an aside, the pendant on the Deputy Mayor’s chain of office bears the date “1937”, another piece of local history. It was part of the Civic Regalia donated by the local benefactor Titus Barham, the Chairman of the Express Dairies company, when Wembley was made a borough in that year. He was chosen to be Wembley’s first Mayor, but he died just before the borough received its Charter. He left his home in Sudbury, and its beautiful grounds, for the enjoyment of the people of Wembley, and they were opened as Barham Park in January 1938.

 

In her short speech at the unveiling, The Garden Trust’s Head of Operations, Linden Groves, noted that all of Repton’s designs for this part of the Wembley Park estate had now gone, to be replaced by Quintain’s ongoing development. However, she was impressed by the modern landscaping of areas like Elvin Gardens. She emphasised how important green spaces were for the wellbeing of residents, as had been clearly shown during the Covid-19 lockdowns.
 

I hope that Cllr. Hylton will take that message back to her fellow councillors, as well as telling them about Humphry Repton, and the bust of him in the gardens just behind the Civic Centre.

 

The location of the Humphry Repton bust – see lime green arrow. (Image from Google Maps)

 

The site across Humphry Repton Lane from the bust has been built on since the aerial image above, and the block of apartments nearing completion is called Repton Gardens. Quintain originally planned to move the bust to Union Park, when work on that is completed, but its present location seems far more appropriate. I hope you will take the opportunity to go and see “Humphry” when you are in the area!

 

 

If you would like to find out more about Humphry Repton and his work, the London Parks & Gardens Trust has recently published “Repton in London – The Gardens and Landscapes of Humphry Repton (1752-1818) in the London Boroughs”. I will be recommending that Brent Libraries gets at least one copy that can be borrowed, but if you would like your own copy, go to: https://www.londongardenstrust.org/publications/repton.php

Philip Grant.

Video of Union Park (South) first section of Wembley Park's new park

 

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Quintain's public relations company has been keen for Wembley Matters to publish details of the new park in the Wembley Regeneration area. Claims that it is the first 'new park' in Wembley Park are not quite true as we have the excellent Chalkhill Park in the locality, but on the other side of the railway line, which is maturing very nicely and really well used by the local community.

I responded that I would like to see the park for myself rather than base a story around the photographs and CGIs provided.

However, any green space is welcome amongst the concrete of the Wembley regeneration area. The southern section, south of Engineers Way,  has a considerable amount of concrete and we are promised a 'more rugged design' for the northern section on the site of the current Yellow car park on the other side of the road. (See LINK)

Today when I visited it was chilly despite the sunshine and there were few people about so the area seemed rather dead but I imagine on a warm day children would be having a great time in the fountains. A nursery will be opening soon on the edge of the park and they will be making use of it as an outdoor play and nature investigation areas. 

It was rather disconcerting to see so much water after I had led a walk on Saturday highlighting the danger of flooding in parts of the regeneration area!

Quintain say:

Union Park features a revolutionary water run-off system, which carries rainwater from around the area, filters it, and then releases it into one of the southern section’s lakes. Water features have been an important component of Wembley Park since it was first laid out by Humphry Repton in the 1770s, with the Wealdstone Brook and Brent River framing the then-manor and now-neighbourhood.

The park features a quotation from Humphry Repton on the side of what resembles a shed but is perhaps a pumping station, that is not entirely legible:

 It reads:

'The character of a place will take its distinguishing marks from the unified consideration of its situation and the extent of territory surrounding'

This gives the reader and visitor a yardstick with which to make up their mind about the park.

Quintain's press release said:

The first part of the park, which is open now, features amenities including a play park, paddling pools, outdoor gym equipment – which will be an extension of the super-gym right beside it – and a multi-use games area which will enable people to play a number of sports in view of the world-famous Wembley Stadium arch.

There is an adjacent cafe  at the foot of one of the high rises which is welcome but given the continuous sound of water, which is likely to induce a sense of urgency in bladders,  and the need for a place where wet children can change into dry clothes,  a public lavatory might be useful.

The park is not yet finished so there may well be one planned.

If you would like to see the park for yourself go along Olympic Way from Wembley Park Station and turn left along Engineers Way. It is a short walk to the Yellow Car Park and Union Park South is opposite. 

I would be interested in your comments on the park.

Philip Grant has left a comment  below and asked me to publish these images by way of explanation.

Postcard showing the North Entrance Gardens at Wembley Park in 1924

Painting of the gardens at the east end of the Lake in 1924/25 (now the southern section of Union Park)

The Wembley Park Story – Part 1

Philip Grant, of Wembley History Society, begins a new weekly series.

Long before Wembley Park, there was Wembley. Wemba lea (Wemba’s clearing) was first recorded in a document in AD825. My fellow local historian, Len Snow, enjoyed saying that football fans, with their chants when going to the Stadium, were singing its correct name.

The clearing is thought to have been just north of the Harrow Road (in the Triangle / Wembley Hill Road area). But who was Wemba? Probably one of the many immigrants, known as Saxons, who crossed the North Sea in the 7^th or 8^th century. Although some were invaders, most came with their families to start a new life as farmers in southern England. Wemba’s lea was in Middlesex (the land of the middle Saxons), and in 825 was part of around 12,000 acres in Harrow given by King Beornwulf of Mercia to Wulfred, Archbishop of Canterbury. This was to make up for land that had been stolen from him by the previous King!

 

1. A Saxon farmer, and extract from a map depicting this area in Saxon times. (Images from the internet)

As Wembley was just a tiny settlement then, within the much larger Parish of Harrow, there is little in the way of records about it for the next few centuries. By the 1100s, there was a slightly larger number of people living nearby in Tokyngton (the farm of Tocca’s sons), and it had a chapel. The parish church was at Harrow-on-the-Hill, so Wembley’s farmers were saved the longer walk to Sunday services.

In 1247, the two areas were brought together as ‘the manor of Wymbley’. The “Lord” of the Manor was actually a woman, the Prioress of Kilburn. Her Priory would have received rents from tenants, as well as food, from the land it held in Wembley and Tokyngton. Although it changed over time to Oakington, the original name was revived when a new Church of England parish was set up in 1925. I am indebted to its first vicar, Rev. H.W.R. Elsley, whose well-researched book, “Wembley through the Ages”, provided details used in this article.

The manor system was very important in medieval times, and all tenants of land were meant to observe the laws, and make sure that their neighbours did the same. They had to attend regular Manor Courts - these are entries from its 14^th century records. In 1315: ‘Appointed John Godwyne taster for Wembele’ (his duty was to check the strength of beer). In 1321: ‘Alice Germayne, of Wembele, has blocked a watercourse, to her neighbours’ damage’ (she would be fined if she failed to put this right). In 1337: Alice le Carpenter, Ralph de Wembely and five others ‘in mercy for selling and brewing ale contrary to the assize’ (the taster had been busy!).

 

2. Making beer in Medieval times. (Image from the internet)

Over the next 200 years, the Page family emerged as one of the wealthiest in this part of Middlesex. They were farmers, but also rented out land to sub-tenants. After King Henry VIII made himself Head of the Church in England, he dissolved Kilburn Priory in 1536, and forced the Archbishop of Canterbury to hand over his large Harrow estates in 1545. Some of the land Henry seized was sold to tenants, such as John Page of Wembley.

In the 18^th century, the Page families of Wembley, Harrow and Uxendon (acquired from the Bellamys in the early 1600s) became united through marriage. The widowed Richard Page of Harrow married again, to the granddaughter of (another) John Page of Wembley. The Page’s main farm in Wembley since Tudor times had been on the Harrow Road, south of Wembley Hill. By the 1740s they had acquired a new slate-roofed brick house, “Wellers”, at nearby Wembley Green. John Rocque’s map shows it had a large orchard, as well as farm buildings.

 

3. Extract from John Rocque's 1744 map of London and Environs, with “Wellers” added. (Brent Archives)

Wembly Green then was still a small settlement, which climbed to the top of the hill. Another map, a century earlier, had shown a windmill on Wembley Hill. The “Barley Mow”, a medieval timber-framed house which had become an inn by 1722, is named there. It was reached up a footpath from a row of cottages that were Wembley’s High Street (not to be confused with Wembley High Road!). The High Street and path (to an “inn”) are still there today, just off of Wembley Hill Road, and are well worth a visit once the “lockdown” is over.

 

4. Some (modernised) homes in Wembley's High Street, August 2013.

Richard Page of Harrow’s first wife, Anne Herne, had a brother and a sister, but neither of them ever married. His second wife, Susanna, bore him five sons. The eldest of these, another Richard Page, decided in the 1780s that he would prefer to live at “Wellers”, rather than in his late father’s mansion at Sudbury Grove. 

He had already planned to convert the farmland around his Wembley home to a country estate when, in 1792, Mary Herne died. She had inherited her family’s fortune on her brother’s death, without a male heir, in 1776. In her will, she left the Herne estate to Richard Page, her late sister’s husband’s eldest son! Richard Page lost no time in hiring England’s leading landscape gardener for his project, Humphry Repton.

5. Humphry Repton's business card, engraved from his own drawing. (From a copy at Brent Archives)

You can see Repton at work in the picture above. He used his skill as an artist to produce watercolour drawings for potential clients, showing their estate then, and how it would look if his designs were carried out. He presented his pictures in a leather-bound “Red Book”. Many survive, but the one for Wembley is missing (if you find it, it would be very valuable!). Luckily, we do have some other evidence.

 

6. Extract from a letter Humphry Repton wrote on 6 May 1793. (From a copy at Brent Archives)

A letter Repton sent to a friend in May 1793 shows that work was underway at Wembley by then. He describes it as ‘a most beautiful spot near Harrow’, but to him it was not free from defects. On another occasion he wrote: ‘To the common observer the beauties of Wembly may appear to need no improvement, but it is the duty of my profession to discover how native charms may be heightened by the assistance of taste; and that even beauty itself may be rendered more beautiful, this place will furnish a striking example.’

 

7. Repton's before and after sketches of Wembley Park, as seen from Barn Hill. (From Brent Archives copy)

There is an image, showing the before and after views of his scheme, from the top of Barn Hill, in a book which Repton published in 1794, “Sketches and Hints on Landscape Gardening”. That book includes the following note: ‘There is at present no word by which we express that sort of territory adjacent to a country mansion, which being too large for a garden, too wild for pleasure ground, and too neat for a farm, is yet often denied the name of a park, because it is not fed by deer. I generally waive this distinction, and call the wood and lawns, near every house, a park, whether fed by deer, by sheep, or heavy cattle.’

And so, the estate was called a park, and its owner became known as Richard Page of Wembley Park. There are several “Parks” in Brent, but the only other one by Repton is Brondesbury Park, which he created for Lady Salusbury in the early 1790s. The term was used again by Victorian developers for upmarket estates like Kilburn Park and Stonebridge Park, while Queens Park has its own story.

In an earlier article on Fryent Country Park, I mentioned that the history of the Page family did not end well. That is where I will take up the Wembley Park story again, next weekend.

Philip Grant.

Brent Schools asked to help name new park in Quintain development

I apologise for the poor legibility of the above flyer from Quintain. It advertises a competition for school classes to provide a name for the new park which will be built  amidst of the high-rise development around Wembley Stadium.

 Each class entering is asked to come up collectively with one name and submit a short description of no more than three sentences,

They are advised to use the following brainstorming ideas:

History of Wembley Park
Famous person from Brent
A member (sic) of Brent that has lived/worked in the area and has made an impact on their community

The competition closes on March 31st. Entries have to be sent to skills@quintain.co.uk

Humphry Repton

 The new park at 7 acres will be much smaller than the original Wembley Park designed by Humphry Repton for the Page family but Repton's bust will will be displayed in the remnant. Quintain won a 'Sharing Landscapes' competition last year LINK which aimed to encourage 'greater inclusivity in enjoying historic parks and gardens' and was awarded the bust.

Repton Gardens is the space behind the Boxpark

Repton (for good or ill) has already given his name to the Repton Gardens development of build-to-rent flats and retail (85 acres) which you can tour  to see the excavations and groundworks as part of the Open Doors programme: LINK

 

Humphry Repton's sketch showing the view of Wembley Park from Barn Hill, if his full scheme had been carried out in 1793

Repton already has his name in rather less than verdant surroundings in the Quintain development. There's probably a minor earthquake around his grave!

Three Lakes at Wembley Park

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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Will tonight's storm change Barn Hill's landscape

We have grown used to weather forecasts becoming increasingly scaremongering but if the storm forecast for Sunday night/Monday morning is as severe as feared, and its trajectory hits London, we could see substantial damage to one of Brent's greatest assets.

Barn Hill in Wembley Park, the remains of  Humphry Repton's Wembley Park Estate planted for Richard Page in 1792, contains many fine trees.  It lost a fair number of trees in the storm of 1987.

This weekend many of the trees are still in full leaf which increases the 'sail effect' when high winds hit. Isolated trees are particularly vulnerable as the full impact of the wind hits them.

I went out this morning in the Autumn  sunshine to record several of the trees in case they become victims of the storm.

This pair are just about surviving at the summit of Barn Hill despite having been hollowed out by insects, woodpeckers and latterly, ring-necked parakeets. They may be saved by the lack of leaves and the fact that they have lost many of their branches already.

The avenue of Lombardy poplars which runs from close to the roundabout at Fryent Way to the pond on top of Barn Hill has looked vulnerable for some time. Planted in 1935, according to some accounts to celebrate the jubilee of King George V, they are out of keeping with the traditional English planing and so unpopular with some. However they are a local land mark, rising as they do above the other woodland, and form a crest that can be seen from miles away. Some have been lost already and others have many dead branches/

 

This 'lone Lombardy' was one of a pair on what local children called 'The Island'  on the lower slope of Barn Hill. Its companion fell in Spring 2012 and gave the children lots of climbing fun before it was eventually sawn up by parks' staff. It and another nearby on its own 'island' are exposed and still in full leaf and therefore vulnerable to high winds. They were already getting quite a battering this morning.

All this is of course part of a natural cycle and fallen trees provide habitats for insects and small mammals, and thus food for birds and predators.  They also provide space for new growth.