Wembley, United Kingdom

In 1837, the London & Birmingham Railway (now part of the West Coast Main Line) was opened from London Euston through Wembley to Hemel Hempstead, and completed to Birmingham Curzon Street the following year. The changing names of the local station demonstrated the increasing importance of the 'Wembley' name. 'Sudbury' station opened in 1845, renamed as 'Sudbury and Wembley' in 1882, renamed as 'Wembley for Sudbury' in 1910, renamed as 'Wembley Central' in 1948, at the time of the Olympic Games.

To modernise the service, a new Watford DC line was built alongside the main lines and Bakerloo line trains, and electric trains to Broad Street started in 1917. Electric trains to London Euston began running in 1922. Since 1917, there have been six platforms at what is now Wembley Central station. In 1880, the Metropolitan Railway opened its line from Baker Street through the eastern side of Wembley, but only built a station, Wembley Park, in 1894. There are now three physically separate services, the London to Aylesbury Line, the Metropolitan line and the Jubilee line. Only the latter two services have platforms at Wembley Park station.

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. 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. The church of Saint John the Evangelist, Wembley, designed by George Gilbert Scott and W. B. Moffatt, was consecrated in 1846, in which year Wembley became a parish. It was built of flint with stone dressings, in the Gothic style, and comprised chancel, nave, northeast chapel, and wooden bell turret. A north aisle was added in 1859 and a south aisle in 1900; extensions were made to the west to designs of G. P. Pratt in 1935. It has one church bell.

In November 1905, the Great Central Railway (now, in this section, part of the Chiltern Main Line) opened a new route for fast expresses that by-passed the congested Metropolitan Railway tracks. It ran between Neasden Junction, south of Wembley, and Northolt Junction, west of London, where a new joint main line with the Great Western Railway began. Local passenger services from London Marylebone were added from March 1906, when new stations were opened, including 'Wembley Hill', next to what later became the site of Wembley Stadium – the national stadium of English sport – which opened for the FA Cup Final of April 1923, remaining open for 77 years until it closed for reconstruction in October 2000. 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. Wembley Hill station was renamed 'Wembley Complex' in May 1978, before getting its present name of 'Wembley Stadium' in May 1987.

Wembley was also served by tram (route 62) and later trolleybus (route 662) which ran through the Harrow Road from Sudbury to Paddington until the abandonment of the networks. The route is now mostly served by bus route 18 which is also one of the busiest bus routes in all of London today.

The 1937-built fire brigade headquarters of Middlesex County Council on Harrow Road, in Moderne style, is now a fire station of the London Fire Brigade. It is statutorily recognised and protected in the initial category, Grade II, of listed building.

Wembley, in common with much of northwest London, had an extensive manufacturing industry, but much of it closed in the 1980s. Its factories included Glacier Metals (bearings), Wolf Power Tools, Sunbeam Electrical Appliances, Griffin & George (laboratory equipment) and GEC (whose research laboratories, opened in 1923, were one of the first of their type in the United Kingdom).

What had been Wembley Park hosted the British Empire Exhibition of 1924–1925. 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.

Most of the rest of Wembley's housing consists of inter-war semi-detached houses and terraces and of modern apartment blocks, with a significant minority of detached houses.

Expansion in the town centre continued. In 1929 the Majestic Theatre was opened, later becoming Odeon Wembley cinema. It closed in 1961 and was demolished, replaced by a C&A store (today a Wilko store). Another cinema in the town was an ABC cinema originally opened as The Regal in 1937, on Ealing Road, which operated until 1976. After this it operated for some years as an independent cinema showcasing Bollywood films. The building was demolished in 1987.