Brent, London: Wembley Stadium, the OVO Arena, Old St Andrew's Kingsbury and the Welsh Harp

Three buildings carry this quarter. Wembley Stadium, HA9 0WS, seats 90,000 and opened in 2007 on the site of the stadium that stood from 1923 until 2000. It is crowned by the 134-metre (440 ft) Wembley Arch, which supports over 75 per cent of the roof load, and two partially retractable roof structures over the east and west ends can be opened to let sunlight onto the pitch. Populous and Foster and Partners designed it, Multiplex built it, and the cost was 798 million pounds. The Football Association owns the ground through its subsidiary Wembley National Stadium Ltd, and it hosts most England home matches and the FA Cup Final. Entry is by event ticket or by booked stadium tour, and the operator publishes no tour times or prices, so none are given here. The ground carries no entry on the National Heritage List for England.

The OVO Arena Wembley stands on Arena Square off Engineers Way, HA9 0AA, 471 m from Wembley Stadium rail station and 609 m from Wembley Park Underground station. The operator states that the venue was originally opened as the Empire Pool in July 1934, built for the 1934 British Empire Games, and gives the capacity as 12,500, with over 120 shows a year and over a million visitors. It held boxing, diving, swimming and water polo at the 1948 Summer Olympics and badminton and rhythmic gymnastics at the 2012 Summer Olympics, and its first concert was in 1959. Legends Global manages and operates it. The building is listed Grade II as WEMBLEY ARENA (FORMERLY THE EMPIRE POOL), NHLE 1078877, on 14 October 1976.

Brent Town Hall stands on Forty Lane, HA9 9LY, in Barnhill ward, and is listed Grade II, NHLE 1262141, on 24 September 1990. It is T-shaped, with a long facade on Forty Lane. Built as Wembley Town Hall, it was the seat of Brent Council until 2013 and is now occupied by the Lycee International de Londres Winston Churchill, so the visit is a look at the facade from Forty Lane rather than a way in. Wikidata holds the building as Q4961570 and gives its administrative unit as the London Borough of Brent.

Kilburn High Road runs along the Brent side of the boundary with Camden, and two of the borough's performance buildings stand on it. The Gaumont State Cinema, 197-199 Kilburn High Road, NW6 7HY, is listed Grade II*, NHLE 1078889, on 10 October 1980, under the name Mecca Bingo, its use at the date of listing. George Coles designed it, it seated 4,004, and its 120 ft (37 m) tower is modelled on the Empire State Building and gave the building the name State. It is in use as Ruach City Church rather than as a general-admission attraction, and the frontage and tower are in view from the High Road. Brondesbury on the Mildmay line is 551 m away, Kilburn High Road on the Lioness line 575 m and Kilburn Park on the Bakerloo line 719 m.

Kiln Theatre is further along the same road at number 269, NW6 7JR, and stages plays and cinema screenings; the box office is on 020 7328 1000. The operator's own history records a Foresters' meeting hall of 1929, converted to a theatre in 1980 by Shirley Barrie and Ken Chubb, who named it the Tricycle Theatre after their Wakefield Tricycle Company, and the building re-opened as Kiln Theatre in September 2018. Nicolas Kent became artistic director in 1984, Indhu Rubasingham joined in 2012 and Amit Sharma became artistic director in 2023. The theatre has produced original work by Zadie Smith, Lynn Nottage, Roy Williams, Moira Buffini, Abi Morgan and Florian Zeller. Brondesbury is 289 m from the theatre's postcode and Kilburn on the Jubilee line 551 m.

Queen's Park, off Kingswood Avenue, NW6 6SG, is owned and managed by the City of London Corporation, one of the Corporation's green spaces outside the City. Entry is free, and the Corporation gives the remaining public expanse as 30 acres. It states that the park was established in 1879 to host the Royal Agricultural Society's International Exhibition, and that Alexander McKenzie, also the designer of the Alexandra Palace grounds and bailiff of Epping Forest and Burnham Beeches, produced the layout in 1887. The bandstand of 1891, cast in iron by Macfarlane and Co. of Glasgow and restored in 1992, is listed Grade II, NHLE 1382063, on 16 August 2000, and a K6 telephone kiosk at the Milman Road entrance is listed Grade II, NHLE 1078891. A Lych Gate of 1936, built to mark King George V's Coronation Jubilee, survives as a seating area in the Quiet Garden. There are tennis courts, a pitch and putt course, an ornamental garden, a children's playground with a sandpit, a small farm and a cafe; cycling is not permitted under the byelaws, and the Corporation warns that the park may close at short notice when wind speeds are forecast at 40 mph or above. Queens Park rail station is 209 m from the Kingswood Avenue address and Queen's Park Underground station 238 m.

Paddington Old Cemetery, on Willesden Lane, NW6 7SD, opened in 1855 and is a working municipal cemetery managed by Brent Council. It is a Grade II registered park and garden, NHLE 1001542, recorded by Historic England at 10.07 hectares, and it carries an old Westminster parish's name while standing in Brent, in Queens Park ward. The mortuary chapels are separately listed Grade II as THE CHAPELS AT PADDINGTON CEMETERY, NHLE 1359002, on 27 May 1982, and the grave of the painter Sigismund Goetze is listed Grade II in its own right, NHLE 1389534, on 8 November 2001. The council warns that extra safety measures are in place around the chapels while structural investigations take place, so the chapels may not be approachable. It opens every day including bank holidays, 9am to 4pm from January to February and from November to December, 9am to 6pm in March, 9am to 7pm in April and September, 9am to 8pm from May to August and 9am to 5pm in October, with last entry 15 minutes before closing. Brondesbury Park is 400 m from the chapels and Queen's Park 540 m.

This is the old Middlesex parish core and the industrial suburbs west of it, and it holds six of the borough's places. St Mary's Church, on Neasden Lane, NW10 2TS, is listed Grade II* as CHURCH OF ST MARY, NHLE 1359036, on 26 July 1951. There has been a church on the site since 938; the present building dates from the 13th century, with restorations in 1850, 1872 and 1893. A shrine to Our Lady of Willesden existed from the 13th century, was destroyed at the Reformation and was restored at the beginning of the 20th century. The Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady of Willesden, a separate building, is listed Grade II, NHLE 1064217, on 15 March 1979, and St Matthew's Church, built between 1900 and 1906 to designs by W. D. Caroe, stands about 900 m south and is listed Grade II, NHLE 1359020. Neasden on the Jubilee line is 558 m from St Mary's and Dollis Hill 762 m.

The BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, 105-119 Brentfield Road, NW10 8LD, was inaugurated in 1995 by Pramukh Swami Maharaj and belongs to the Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha. It was built entirely by traditional methods and in traditional materials, in stone rather than in a converted secular building, and the complex holds a permanent exhibition, Understanding Hinduism, and a cultural centre with an assembly hall, gymnasium, bookshop and offices. The operator states that the Mandir and Haveli are usually open to the public from 9.00am to 6.00pm throughout the year, including Bank Holidays, and gives the same timings for the exhibition; entry to the mandir is free. Neasden is 1,048 m away and Stonebridge Park 1,142 m, so every approach is a walk of over a kilometre. The site carries no entry on the National Heritage List for England.

Willesden Jewish Cemetery, which runs a heritage centre under the name House of Life, is on Beaconsfield Road, NW10 2JE, and is a Grade II registered park and garden, NHLE 1449184, recorded by Historic England at 8.04 hectares. The operator states that nearly 30,000 men, women and children have been buried here since 1873, and Wikipedia gives 29,800 graves. Nathan Rothschild, 1st Baron Rothschild, and members of his family are buried here, and the tomb of Rosalind Franklin, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, is listed Grade II, NHLE 1444176, on 7 March 2017. Four monuments inside the cemetery carry their own Grade II listings: the complex of funerary buildings, NHLE 1448718, on 1 August 2017; the burial enclosures of Mayer, Juliana and Hannah Rothschild, NHLE 1449844; the tomb of Max Eberstadt, NHLE 1449845; and the war memorial of 1961 by Ralph Hobday, NHLE 1449842, the last three all on 5 September 2017. The House of Life project, funded by a National Lottery Heritage Fund grant of 2015, opened the cemetery to visitors on 7 September 2020. Dollis Hill is 485 m from the Beaconsfield Road postcode.

Roundwood Park, on Harlesden Road, NW10 3SH, is free, managed by Brent Council and a Grade II registered park and garden, NHLE 1001556, recorded by Historic England at 10.63 hectares. The council describes a formal Victorian park and names an aviary, a cafe, a children's playground, a picnic area with tables, a public toilet, a sports hall, sports pitches and courts, a wildlife area, bowling greens taken by booking, multi-use games areas and outdoor gyms; a dog control order applies to the entrance and flower garden areas. The ground was known in the 19th century as Knowles Hill or Hunger Hill Common Field, and the present name comes from Roundwood House, which stood beside it. Wikipedia names Oliver Claude Robson as the designer who created the park and gives the area as 26.5 acres. Nothing is within a kilometre: Willesden Junction is 1,081 m from the Harlesden Road address and Dollis Hill 1,228 m.

The Church of All Souls stands on the traffic island where Station Road meets Harlesden High Street, NW10 4UJ, and is listed Grade II*, NHLE 1359000, on 23 January 1974; Harlesden town centre grew around it. Wikidata holds it as Q17541751 and gives the London Borough of Brent as its administrative unit. The Jubilee Clock in Harlesden is listed Grade II, NHLE 1359035, on 23 January 1974, and Wikipedia dates the clock tower to 1888, marking Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee of 1887; the Green Man public house is listed Grade II, NHLE 1294638. Willesden Junction is the nearest station to the church, 367 m to the Lioness and Mildmay platforms and 399 m to the Bakerloo line, with Harlesden 684 m and 700 m.

Brent Museum and Archives occupies the second floor of The Library at Willesden Green, 95 High Road, NW10 2SF, and is free. The museum and exhibition space open Monday to Friday 10.30am to 8pm, Saturday 10.30am to 5pm and Sunday 12pm to 5pm; the archives open Tuesday to Thursday 10.30am to 5pm, to 8pm every alternate Thursday, Friday 11am to 4pm for volunteers and project partners only, and alternate Saturdays 10.30am to 5pm with a closure from 1pm to 2pm, and at least one week's notice is required for an archives appointment. It is the borough museum and record office combined, holding photographs, documents and objects of local history, and a current exhibition, Brent Records Album Covers, shows the covers of reggae albums released from the 1960s to the 2020s. Contact is museum.archives@brent.gov.uk and 020 8937 3600. Willesden Green station, 624 m from the library postcode, is itself listed Grade II, NHLE 1391808.

The north and west of the borough are its open country, and they hold its Grade I building. Old St Andrew's Church, on Old Church Lane, NW9 8TA, is listed Grade I as OLD PARISH CHURCH OF ST ANDREW, NHLE 1188676, on 6 October 1952; Brent holds one Grade I entry on the National Heritage List for England, and this is it. Wikidata holds it as Q7085063 and gives an inception of 1150. It is vested in the Churches Conservation Trust, which states that access is available by appointment only, by contacting Father Ioan Sarpe, and a Romanian Orthodox congregation uses it under a twenty-year lease from 2012; the vesting dates from 7 October 2010. A second church stands in the same churchyard, the New Parish Church of St Andrew, listed Grade II*, NHLE 1078874, on 6 October 1952, moved here from Wells Street in Marylebone, and six churchyard monuments are listed Grade II in their own right on 18 November 1996: the chest tomb to Joseph Finch, NHLE 1267872, the monument to William Frederick Ashton, NHLE 1267871, and the tombstones to Edwin Austin Abbey, NHLE 1267873, Henry Wetherilt, NHLE 1267869, Thomas Raworth, NHLE 1267875, and Timothy Wetherilt, NHLE 1267866. Wembley Park, 1,398 m away, is the single station within 1,500 m, and the Trust gives the same figure as 0.8 miles.

Brent Reservoir, known as the Welsh Harp, is reached from Birchen Grove: NW9 7LY for the Welsh Harp Open Space and NW9 8RY for the Welsh Harp Environmental Education Centre. The open space and towpaths are free. Brent Council describes 170 hectares of open water, marshes, trees and grassland and states that it is a Site of Special Scientific Interest; Wikipedia gives the Site of Special Scientific Interest as 68.6 hectares, or 170 acres. The water straddles the Brent-Barnet boundary, is owned by the Canal & River Trust, is fed by the Silk Stream and the River Brent and holds an estimated 1,600,000 cubic metres. The name comes from a public house, The Welsh Harp, which stood nearby until the early 1970s. The open space came into existence in 1965 and lies north-west of the water, and the education centre sits in 15 acres of woodland and has been managed by the waterways charity Thames21 since 2016. Sailing clubs on the water include Welsh Harp Sailing Club, Wembley Sailing Club, the Sea Cadets and the University of London sailing club, and fishing is prohibited. The two bird hides are locked and the council directs visitors to the education centre for access. A Site of Special Scientific Interest is a Natural England designation, and the reservoir carries no entry on the National Heritage List for England.

Fryent Country Park covers 103 hectares of traditional Middlesex countryside off Fryent Way, NW9 9SE, in the council's own words, and is free. Barn Hill, the high point, rises to 86 m and is capped by pebble gravel, Gotfords Hill reaches 63 m and Beane Hill 65 m, and the rest of the park lies on London clay. Fryent Way bisects it, the Capital Ring footpath passes through it, part is let on licence for the grazing of ponies and there is no formal organised sport. There is a rough-surfaced car park for about 50 vehicles on the western side of Fryent Way. Wikipedia gives 103 hectares (254 acres) for the park with Barn Hill Open Space together. It is a nature reserve, classed as Metropolitan Open Land and as a wildlife site of Metropolitan Importance under the system Brent and the Greater London Authority use, and it carries no entry on the National Heritage List for England. Kingsbury on the Jubilee line is 539 m from the Fryent Way address and the single station within 1,200 m of it.

Sudbury Town Underground Station, on Station Approach, HA0 2LA, is listed Grade II*, NHLE 1294594, on 19 February 1971, and Wikidata holds it as Q1768993 and gives Charles Holden as the architect. It is a working station on the Uxbridge branch of the Piccadilly line, between Sudbury Hill and Alperton, in fare zone 4, and the ticket hall can be seen without admission; the forecourt is known as Station Crescent. The main entrance on Station Approach is in Brent, on the boundary the station shares with Ealing. Sudbury & Harrow Road on Chiltern Railways is 491 m away and Wembley Central about 1.3 km east. A K8 telephone kiosk at Northwick Park station is listed Grade II, NHLE 1485378, on 9 June 2023.

Barham Park, at 660 Harrow Road, HA0 2HB, is free, managed by Brent Council and has free parking on site for about 16 cars. The council describes a gently undulating park with pathways and many mature trees that has maintained much of its formal Victorian character, and calls the walled garden a popular relaxation spot with visitors; a dog control order applies to the walled garden. The park and several local landmarks take their name from the Barham family, formerly major landowners in Sudbury. The surviving structures of Barham Old Court - garden walls, gates, a pergola of two Portland stone Ionic columns and a sundial on Portland stone Ionic columns - are listed Grade II, NHLE 1294729, on 15 March 1979, while the park itself is not on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. Wembley Fire Station, on Harrow Road, is listed Grade II, NHLE 1247236, on 24 November 2000, and the Grade II* Hundred Elms Farm outbuilding, NHLE 1078876, listed 6 October 1952, stands 1,087 m north-west at Dyson Court, HA0 2NZ. Sudbury Town Underground station is 354 m from the park and Sudbury & Harrow Road 408 m.

Brent is served by four Underground lines - the Jubilee, the Metropolitan, the Bakerloo and the Piccadilly - by two Overground lines, the Lioness and the Mildmay, and by National Rail, with Chiltern Railways to Wembley Stadium and to Sudbury & Harrow Road and Southern to Wembley Central. There is no Elizabeth line station, no DLR and no tram in the borough. The Lioness line is the Watford DC route through Kensal Green, Queens Park, Kilburn High Road, Willesden Junction, Harlesden, Stonebridge Park and Wembley Central; the Mildmay line is the North London route through Kensal Rise, Brondesbury Park and Brondesbury. Willesden Junction, Wembley Central, Queen's Park, Kensal Green, Stonebridge Park and Harlesden each have both an Underground stop and an Overground or National Rail stop, with separate Naptan identifiers.

Wembley Park, on the Jubilee and Metropolitan lines, is the year-round station for the stadium and the arena: 801 m from Wembley Stadium and 609 m from the OVO Arena Wembley. Wembley Stadium rail station, 490 m from the ground, is served by Chiltern Railways and opens for events. Three stations in the borough are themselves listed: Willesden Green, on the Jubilee and Metropolitan lines, Grade II, NHLE 1391808; Kilburn Park on the Bakerloo line, by Stanley Heaps, Grade II, NHLE 1078871; and Sudbury Town on the Piccadilly line, Grade II*, NHLE 1294594.

Distances are longer in the north and west. Kingsbury on the Jubilee line is 539 m from Fryent Country Park and the single station within 1,200 m of it. Wembley Park is 1,398 m from Old St Andrew's Church, Kingsbury, and the single station within 1,500 m. From Birchen Grove, NW9 8RY, at the Welsh Harp Environmental Education Centre, Wembley Park is 1,531 m and Neasden 1,555 m, both in Brent, while Hendon is 1,975 m and Brent Cross West 2,255 m, both in Barnet; from the Welsh Harp Open Space address, NW9 7LY, Hendon on Thameslink is nearest at 1,414 m. Roundwood Park and the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir each stand more than a kilometre from any station, at 1,081 m and 1,048 m respectively.