In 1792 Richard Page decided to employ the famous landscape architect Humphry Repton (1752–1818) to convert the farmland into wooded parkland and to make improvements to the house.

It included the southern slopes of Barn Hill to the north, where Repton planted trees and started building a 'prospect house' – a gothic tower offering a view over the parkland.

[6][7][8] Richard Page lost interest in Wembley Park, partly because he had inherited a fully completed Capability Brown (1716–1783) landscape at Flambards in Harrow, so the house itself was never remodelled by Repton.

Wembley Park Mansion, now with stucco facing as part of Gray's improvements, (and so known locally as 'The White House'), was situated west of Empire Way, while much of the parkland was to the east.

Wembley Park was described in 1834 as "beautifully diversified by fine grown timber judiciously placed, contributing a seclusion such as is scarcely elsewhere to be enjoyed, but at a considerable distance from the metropolis."

[11][14] The park became a sizeable pleasure garden that boasted cricket & football grounds, a large running track, tea pagodas, bandstands, a lake, a nine-hole golf course, a variety theatre and a trotting ring.

[15][18][19][20] The loss of the tower did not diminish the park's appeal as a public recreation ground, and it continued to offer football, cricket, cycling, rowing, athletics and in winter, ice skating on the frozen lake.

Arthur Elvin's rescue of the Empire Stadium building then ensured that this[clarification needed] continued, and that Wembley Park would remain the pre-eminent visitor attraction in west London, even though much of the Exhibition site was taken over by light engineering.

[38][39][40][41] The 1924 Metro-land guide describes Wembley Park as "rapidly developed of recent years as a residential district", pointing out that there are several golf courses within a few minutes journey of it.

When rebuilt in the late 1920s, Wembley Studios would become Britain's first purpose-built sound stages, though it was seriously damaged in a fire in October 1929, not long after it had opened.

From 1959, and especially from the late 1960s onwards, The SSE Arena has become increasingly associated with popular music, hosting every major artist from the Beatles to the Stones, Bowie to Madonna.

Sporting events, including football matches, returned to Wembley, although for a while after Dunkirk the Stadium became an Emergency Dispersal Centre, and later housed refugees from occupied countries.

[63][64] Unofficial cup finals were held in the Stadium, as well as internationals against the home nations, and greyhound racing returned, albeit only in daylight hours, while Canadian troops invigorated ice hockey.

Light industry in Wembley Park helped the war effort, but the low concentration of bombs here compared to Tokyngton just south of it, suggests that it was not seriously targeted by the Luftwaffe.

It was debated whether a sports festival was really necessary at such a time, but it was generally agreed that it could only bring an element of light relief and a wider image of progress, to which other nations could easily relate.

The fewest Olympic records were set in the history of the Games thus far, although the restricted women's competition was expanded to 10 possible[clarification needed] events with the addition of the 200-metre run, the long jump, and the shot put.

British Guiana (now Guyana), Burma (now Myanmar), Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Iran, Iraq, Jamaica, Korea, Lebanon, Pakistan, Puerto Rico, Singapore, Syria, Trinidad and Tobago, and Venezuela were all nations sending teams for the first time.

[85] The post-war years also saw religious events at the Stadium (a Roman Catholic celebration in 1950, a gathering of Jehovah's Witnesses in 1951 and Billy Graham's Greater London Crusade in 1954), as well as women's hockey.

The discovery that popular music events attracted large, new audiences would radically change the Empire Pool's offer in the decades to come.

[29] On 18 June in the same year, Henry Cooper fought Cassius Clay (Mohammed Ali) in the Stadium, a change from holding boxing matches in the Pool.

Wembley Stadium refused to cancel a greyhound meeting on 15 July that clashed with Uruguay v. France, meaning that the match had to be played at White City.

Since all the major stars of the era, ranging from Billy Fury to Status Quo, played at these events, the Pool quickly became associated with popular music.

[100] On 13 July 1969 the band Yes performed at Wembley Stadium, on a bill that also included Alan Price, Don Partridge (aka "the King of the Buskers") and Status Quo, who would be the first act to open Live Aid, on exactly the same date 16 years later.

[113] On 13 July 1985 the Stadium was the venue for an enormous 16-hour charity rock concert, largely the brain-child of Irish singer Bob Geldof, in partnership with Midge Ure from Ultravox.

It was a hot day, and Wembley staff had to distribute water, hose down the crowd and even cut off the legs from people's jeans to convert them into shorts.

As Conservative MP Andrew Bingham later said in a House of Commons debate on football governance, "I remember going to the last game at the old Wembley stadium and thinking how old and archaic it looked compared with the new and modern grounds.

A lion's head corbel from the building was saved and is now on display in the green space on Wembley Hill Road, opposite York House.

Brent Town Hall, the former home of the council located about a mile north, closed down and was sold, turning into a French lycee school that opened in September 2015.

A local launched a petition against these plans to Brent North MP Barry Gardiner and the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan.

The Wealdstone Brook tributary of the River Brent starts off at the Stadium Industrial Estate and runs between Bridge Road and Wembley Park Drive, and through Forty Avenue towards Preston.