1. The Olympic torch relay mural.
Guest post by Philip Grant, in a personal capacity.
If you have been a regular reader of “Wembley Matters” over the past year, you will know that these tile murals, celebrating Wembley Park’s sports and entertainment heritage, are a subject close to my heart. I have recently been putting together a detailed document about them, for the “local history articles” collection at Brent Archives, and this is now available for anyone to access online. If you are interested, you can find it here.
After a brief introduction about the origin of the tile murals, the article goes on to provide information and photographs of nearly all of the mural scenes included in this important public artwork. There are just a few, on the west wall of the subway, which I have not been able to find any good photographs of.
The illustrations show many scenes, like the one above, which you are not able to see at the moment. They also include the photograph below, of one of the original scenes, most of which has sadly been “lost”.
2. The full Stadium Pop Concerts mural scene, before 2006.
My article then gives details of how the murals have been covered up since 2013, apart from one put back on public display in 2019, and three displayed for a short time at the beginning of this year.
It concludes with some encouraging words from Brent Council and Quintain at the temporary "reveal" of three mural scenes in January, which are evidence that they now acknowledge the importance of the tile murals. That gives some grounds for hope that their previous disregard for this heritage asset may be a thing of the past. At least they cannot pretend, when decisions about the Bobby Moore Bridge have to be made in future, that they did not realise the murals were there!
To bring us up to date below are scenes at Wembley in support of the NHS during the Coronavirus crisis.
Philip Grant
3. Bobby Moore Bridge Says 'Thank you NHS' (Credit: Wembley Park)
4. Bobby Moore Bridge supporting 'London Together' (Credit: Amanda Rose)