Slightly south-west of the old core, the main station was originally called Sudbury, but today is known as Wembley Central.

By the 1920s, the nearby long High Road hosted a wide array of shops and Wembley was a large suburb of London.

After years of debate, the 1923 stadium was replaced by a modernised stadium with a grand, skyline arch which opened in 2007;[3] it is home to the England national football team, hosts latter and/or final stages of annual competitions such as the FA Cup and has the greatest capacity nationwide.

Anne and Frances Copland, who in 1843 inherited Sudbury Lodge and its lands, gave a plot for a church to serve the southern part of Harrow parish.

[10] In spite of less support from local farmers, who preferred part of Lord Northwick's property on Wembley Hill, the sisters' offer was accepted since they would bear all the cost of building.

[10] It was built of flint with stone dressings, in the Gothic style, and comprised chancel, nave, northeast chapel, and wooden bell turret.

[11] After a long planning and redevelopment process dogged by a series of funding problems and construction delays, the new stadium finally opened its doors in March 2007.

[21][22][23][24] Until the 2000s, remnants of the many reinforced concrete buildings, including the original Wembley Stadium, remained, but nearly all have now been removed, to make way for redevelopment.

[26] During the 1960s, rebuilding of Wembley Central station, a block of flats, an open-plan shopping plaza, and a car park were constructed on a concrete raft over the railway.

However the large Indian community in the town maintained a growing jewellery market with their shops on Ealing Road.

[29] In a bid to reverse Wembley's fortunes, in the mid-2000s plans were created and approved to completely regenerate the place, carried out by construction company St. Modwen.

[36] The listed Brent Town Hall was also disposed and became a French school, Lycée International de Londres Winston Churchill.

[37] The new Wembley stadium was designed by a consortium including engineering consultant Mott MacDonald and built by the Australian firm Multiplex.

[39] In 2004, Brent Council approved a mixed use plan by Buro Happold for the development of 55 acres (223,000 m2) adjacent to the stadium, which was presented by Quintain Limited.

Wembley falls within the UK Parliament constituency of Brent North, currently represented by Barry Gardiner MP (Labour).

Wembley formed part of the large ancient parish of Harrow on the Hill in the Gore hundred of Middlesex.

Widening schemes for the North Circular Road, which passed along the Brent valley, close to the boundary between the two, increased this sense of separation.

[27] The unpopularity persisted and in 1989 more than ten thousand people signed a petition calling for Wembley to regain its independence or else join with the London Borough of Harrow with which it had historic administrative links, had better transport integration and had shared common suburban interests.

Willesden was harder to satisfactorily match with a neighbour, with Ealing considered the most natural choice, the main problem being the lack of a focal point, with the industrial areas of Park Royal, Old Oak Common and North Acton forming a relatively ill-connected barrier between the two.

In broadest terms Wembley has eight main green spaces, all but the golf course being public (no farms or private parks exist).

Sudbury Golf Course abuts the Paddington Arm of the Grand Union Canal, with a towpath running into central London.

Wembley is a short distance away from the Welsh Harp reservoir and open space, created in the early 19th century by damming the River Brent to provide water for the Grand Union Canal.

The town takes up the south-western quarter of the borough of Brent, being west of Harlesden and Willesden and south of Kenton.

Wembley is known for its high degree of ethnic and religious diversity, and the population includes a large number of people of Asian, Afro-Caribbean and Eastern European origin.

In more recent years, regeneration has helped these areas fare better albeit with a higher general cost of living.

[52] Ealing Road remains important as a centre of South Asian jewellery and gold shops,[53] attracting people from as far afield as Leicester, but otherwise the focus of shopping has shifted north and east to the more recent development of London Designer Outlet[54] in Wembley Park, which is part of the Stadium's complex and also includes a fully pedestrianised street near the Stadium.

The market was then set up at the former Unisys tower near Stonebridge Park station before it was closed within a year by the council citing traffic disruption.

Wembley Golf Club, founded in 1896, was situated north of the Metropolitan Railway line in what is now the Fryent Country Park.

[65] Brent's only English Heritage blue plaque is on Forty Lane, commemorating the comedian and entertainer Arthur Lucan.

[66][67] The prime landmark is Wembley Stadium, rebuilt 2003–07 at a cost of £827 million,[68] which is approached via the White Horse Bridge designed by the London Eye architects.