[7] At this time Wembley was a sparsely populated rural area which did not merit the construction of a railway station and MR trains passed through without stopping.

Slushy fields and grass farms.However the then chairman of the MR, Edward Watkin, was an ambitious businessman who sought new ways of attracting paying passengers out of London and onto his railway, and he regarded the barren lands of Wembley as a business opportunity.

In 1881 Watkin purchased large tracts of land close to the MR line and began a grand scheme to build an amusement park at Wembley, laid out with boating lakes, a waterfall, ornamental gardens and cricket and football pitches.

[8] Wembley Park station was specially constructed to serve these pleasure grounds as a destination for excursion trips on the company's trains.

[12] From 1915 the MR began a programme of selling off its surplus land holdings in Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Middlesex for suburban housing development.

Following the combination of the MR and London's other underground railways to form the London Passenger Transport Board (LPTB) in 1933, the LPTB took steps to alleviate the congestion by constructing new Bakerloo line tunnels from Baker Street to connect to the Metropolitan's tracks south of Finchley Road station.

To handle the exceptional number of spectators visiting Wembley Stadium, the original station building was extended, with a new ticket hall, additional circulation routes and platform stairs.

When the UEFA European Football Championship was held at Wembley in 1996, a large temporary staircase was constructed leading down from the 1948 extension and under the newly built Bobby Moore Bridge, which had opened in 1993.

Costing £80m,[17] the work included a significantly larger ticket hall, additional footbridges, widened stairs to Olympic Way and 5 lifts to provide step-free access.