Where to Stay in Wembley, England

What is Wembley known for?

Sport gathers here in more forms than one: Wembley Park Cricket Ground, Trailfinders Sports Ground and the Perivale Park Athletics Track are all within the district's reach, and the Uxendon Shooting School Club left its name behind. Churches supply the older layer. Old St Andrew's Church, St Mary's Perivale and Christ Church stand at the older end of a long list of parish buildings.

What are the main landmarks in Wembley?

Dedications to saints outnumber all else. Wembley and the ground around it hold a Church of St Peter, a Church of St Mary, a Church of St Barnabas, a Church of St John and a Church of the Ascension, several of them repeated under the same dedication. The Twin Towers stand apart from all of them.

Wembley Park Cricket Ground and Trailfinders Sports Ground carry the sporting side, while Bannon House and the Church of St John the Baptist sit further down the same list.

What is the history of Wembley?

Parishes came before the wards. Old St Andrew's Church, St Mary's Perivale, the Parish Church of the Holy Cross at Greenford and St Mary's at Harrow on the Hill mark out a scatter of parish villages across this corner of north-west London. New churches followed the old.

The New Parish Church Of St Andrew and the Holy Cross New Church at Greenford repeat dedications the older buildings already held, so both generations survive on the same list. Sport arrived early. Wembley Park Cricket Ground and the Uxendon Shooting School Club are recorded here, two names from a period when this ground was open enough for shooting and cricket.

Then the wards multiplied. Alperton, Barn Hill, Kenton, Northwick Park, Preston, Sudbury, Tokyngton, Wembley Central, Wembley Hill and Wembley Park are the units the district is counted in, a list long enough to show how much building filled the gaps between the churches. The Twin Towers head that list.

Administrative tidying finished the job: the London Borough of Brent gathered the wards under one name, which is why a place about eight miles from Charing Cross reads as a single district rather than as the villages it was. Bannon House and the terrace south of the War Memorial Building are listed among the survivals.

Where is Wembley?

Charing Cross is the yardstick. Wembley lies about eight miles north-west of it, inside the London Borough of Brent, and its ward names, Barn Hill, Wembley Hill, Northwick Park, record the ground as much as the streets do. Ten wards make up the district.

Alperton, Kenton, Preston, Sudbury, Tokyngton and Wembley Central fill in around Wembley Park, while the churches at Perivale and Greenford stand just outside the ward list.

What is the climate of Wembley?

Wembley shares London's weather. The temperate band it sits in spreads rain across every month, so the district has no dry season to plan around and no monsoon to wait out. Open ground feels it most.

Wembley Park Cricket Ground, Trailfinders Sports Ground and the Perivale Park Athletics Track all lie under the same even sky, and their seasons are set by the calendar rather than by a break in the rain.

How do you get to Wembley?

Charing Cross sets the distance. Wembley sits about eight miles north-west of it, which puts the district inside London rather than beyond it, and the approach runs through the London Borough of Brent rather than across open country. Arrival is ward by ward.

Wembley Central and Wembley Park anchor the middle of the district, with Alperton, Sudbury, Kenton, Preston and Northwick Park spaced around them, so the ward a visitor arrives in decides how far the walk is. The Twin Towers are the fixed point.