It should have been the most amazing building in London... For more on Watkin, see: • The Circle Line Slapfight Or • Metropolitan Line to P... ko-fi.com/jago... / jagohazzard
@@lkrnpk now cricket, that's the sport of kings. That will become THE sport of the masses that every man and his dog will want to watch and fill cricket grounds every single week, mark my words!
Having been born in Penge and living my early years in that area, I always had a fondness for the Crystal Palace television transmitter mast which I thought of as a British version of the Eiffel Tower.
As a student in the early 60s I was always impressed with the TV tower at Crystal Palace. That's where I changed buses after visiting my girl friend (later wife) in Streatham Hill on my my back to my digs in Woolwich. I once missed the last bus and had to walk all the way from Crystal Palace to Woolwich.
There is the urban legend that goes round London of American tourists going on the London Eye and mistaking the transmitter for the Eiffel Tower. I would love to believe that. Being from Blackpool, I'm delighted that Watkins failed and New Brighton got pulled down. What a meanie!
With 2020 hindsight it becomes obvious that Watkins backed the wrong horse. Had he opted to build the world's biggest Ferris wheel imagine what he would have started.
Way out of Jago's geographical area, another impressive tower was actually built near Liverpool. New Brighton Tower was a steel lattice observation tower at New Brighton in the town of Wallasey, on the Wirral. It stood 567 feet high, and was the tallest building in Great Britain when it opened around 1900. However, it only lasted until 1921, when it was discovered that maintenance neglect, necessitated because of World War One, had made it unsafe and meant it had to be demolished, with associated buildings going as late as 1969. Yet virtually nobody has ever heard of it. The story is on RUclips/Wiki.
That was a great story - and well told, IMO. I knew nothing of this tower before. BTW - the tower with trains winding up the side was my favourite. Not the best looking - but what a train ride that would be.
Well Watkin wanted via his channel tunnel to get to paris. he also wanted a bigger erection for London to outdo the french capital - he said so in a letter
He certainly was a visionary - he had also been responsible for the first attempt, and got some way with the necessary boring, at the Channel Tunnel in 1880. :)
Hello from Wembley. ❤️ Wembley is mentioned in The Doomsday Book, as land belonging to a Saxon landowner called Wemba, hence Wemba's ley which is Saxon for a field. ❤️ Currently the local council is promoting the new retail park, over the actual town centre, in fact they didn't even put Christmas decorations on our high road, but they put them in the retail park which is a tourist attractions and of little use to the actual locals, except for a large Tesco's. Bit like the tourists who go to Bicester, only to go shopping and ignore the town and it's historical places. In our case that includes a Victorian parish church remodelled by a famous architect, one of the Gilbert Scott family. 🙄
Reminds me, of the world expo (1958) in Brussels: They wanted a monument similar to the Eifel tower. One of the ideas was building another Eifel tower but this time upside down. Luckily they didn't proceed otherwise we would have ended with a Monty Python kind of mockery. Instead, they built something with big balls.
@@highpath4776 Meccano was inspired by Dockyard Cranes, but the largest - or at least Tallest - item ever assembled from Meccano, was a model of the Effel Tower. The longest though; was James May's work, in a build done in Liverpool.
@@highpath4776 Freshly manufactured aye, in Calais France; albeit made with tooling that came from Meccano's former Binns Road factory in Liverpool. (the latter having operated from 1914 till 1978)
A public house near the beginning of Empire way running up to the stadium was named “Watkins folly”, but that had to close due to lack of support also.
There was a thing about towers over here: Blackpool, Brighton and Wembley. I think Brighton got completed, but didn't make it to WW2, and Blackpool has been doing very well, a national institution irritating the hell out the French at being quintessentially all that's British Seaside with fun, warm ale, fried food, and wondrous tat galore beneath their contempt. I think Eiffel knew what was on the cards and wanted no part of it. It probably would have been ideal for Marconi, Tesla, Baird, Reith etc to test their radio, wireless electricity and tv systems. It would have been very profitable, with quite a fight for space and the risk of complaints from little old ladies in Frien Barnet getting a fright each time they turned on the toaster and it spontaneously burst into flames to The Bee Song.
Actually, it was the tall New Brighton Tower in The Wirral (not Brighton on the South Coast) that was built in 1900 and demolished in 1919. Edward Watkin was a forceful entrepreneur and chairman of a whole slew of railway companies from Manchester to London and beyond, and his ambition was to complete a Manchester to Paris link via a Channel Tunnel, in which he also had an interest. 'Watkin's Folly' at Wembley was just a side-show in the greater scheme of things. Well worth researching!
They started building a tower at Morecambe, but it was never finished. There were plans to build them at other seaside resorts, but no others were started.
I used to play in the exhibition grounds during the war. The concrete of the switchback railway was still extant. Why not do a video on the Wembley Exhibition. When they were selling off stuff afterwards my eldest brother bought a large pair of leather bellows. They stood in our garden for years. I used to pump them by standing on them
I have a toffee tin with lithos of the exhibition. Lots of exhibitions with railways, (Crystal Palace, White City, )( need to do one on the millenium dome for April 1st.
Had those too. Good times. Being considered similar sounding to Willie Rushton is to my mind high praise indeed. I tend to associate Jago's voice with Drachinifel's though.
Years pasted yet quality in england has gone nowhere! It is very strange to see that house building in UK has not developed at all, or even decreased. If you asked me, uk has no building standards at all compared to EU making it a 3rd world country. Only in UK you pay service charges living with peasants :D they dont even put any insulation between floors :Ddd they LOVE CARPETS as well :D
I remember my dad taking me round the area when I was a kid. In the industrial estate you'd still find remnants of the 1924 exhibition. Bits like the odd stone lion . That was about 50 years ago. I wonder if there's still some stuff left?
@@JagoHazzard I think most of the buildings went with the general recenter redevelopment, I think there were some film and tv studio and props use in the 1980s and logistics handling, take a look at some mid 1980s directories / early google street view,
@@JagoHazzard I'm sure I read before that there used to be a railway loop that ran through the industrial estate next to the stadium, and there was a station on that loop.
@@JagoHazzard Further to my last reply, this is the one I referred to. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wembley_Exhibition_railway_station. If you look at a satellite view of the area you can see some industrial buildings (on the road named 'Second Way') that look like they and the road were built to follow the curve of the line.
I see in the London Transport Collection there is a poster from 1980 showing special services (A stock or C stock ?) from Wembley to Barking for West Ham's FA Charity Shield Match v Liverpool
I actually could say I had heard of this as I do a talk about Blackpool Tower, as the two structures are inextricably linked. The London Debenture Company was set up to basically "con" money out of other places to also have a tower, to help fund the failing Watkins one. After they had taken the money and run, Blackpool's mayor, Alderman Bickerstaffe didn't want that slur on his town, so he organised real funding from friends and business acquaintances and of course it was a HUGE success, as it still is, as it improved on the Eiffel one by having lots of attractions inside as well to keep you ( and your wallet), there all day Not just a tower u could probably visit completely in an hour or two. Ironically, if the LDC actually had built it, instead of just running off with the dosh, they could probably have fully funded ten Watkins Follies. Lol. In the Blackpool Tower, on the "silver landing", there's a HUGE silver model of the Tower, given to Bickerstaffe, by the VERY happy tower company shareholders. Think that says it all. There was another built at New Brighton on the Wirral and a third proposed for Douglas on the Isle of Man that never happened. They planned to send messages between the three using ships semaphore flags. They did for a while between the two at Blackpool and New Brighton, but I guess it got a bit boring after a while. Lol.
You can see the blackpool tower from the high point of the rollercoaster in Southport. (well you can see it from the sands ground level at Southport too.
Great videos. I wish all history learning was like this...where every event has some association with a real object and place. It makes it easier to remember.
"Trolley parks" at the ends of transit lines were a common way to drive ridership in the 19th- and early 20th-century US as well. Often the line would work well as a commuter line on weekdays, but the park could be used to bring in some extra revenue on weekends, and they would gradually evolve from mere gardens to amusement parks. Only a few of these are still around--my home amusement park, Canobie Lake Park, is one of them, though the associated trolley line is long gone.
I remember being taken on a special train round the circular Wembley Exhibition line (in the late 1950s) which had its own station that was later used for football crowds. I think the area is an industrial estate now.
It’s amazing to see how this land developed. To Wembley stadium then I the middle of fields and now the new one , almost hidden behind housing blocks. Shocking how people multiply like insects.
I still find it a pity that they pulled down Wembley Stadium. It's like if they would propose to pull down the Olympic Stadium in Amsterdam. People would write angry letters to newspapers, or more likely, utter death threats on social media.
Did you go to the old Wembley Stadium? To be honest it was extremely run down at the end of it's life and not fit for purpose, it was well overdue a replacement. Although I'm still not sure why we need a national stadium in the first place.
^ >ahem< of course it was run down and not fit for purpose... it was originally to have been a Temporary stadium XD. The issue was never that it was replaced (that'd been demanded for decades), rather that the distinguishing bits of it weren't saved, contrary to prior assertions that they would be. Whether something is flawless also seldom has anything to do with veneration. After all: Richard Hawkins was well regarded, even though most of him didn't work.
@@mccstuff Put it this way... for me, the new Wembley is like so many other modern structures in London: no doubt architecturally a marvel, but no soul to it. Perhaps I'm biassed, because I used to live in Amsterdam, and there you gradually go from the 17th to the 21st century as you go further from the city centre. And I like the homogenous look of places like Paris, Florence, and even Rome. In London, you have a massive Ferris wheel next to old structures like the Houses of Parliament, or Tower Bridge. And this disjunction is all over London. But perhaps it's like the pyramid at the centre of the Louvre: there will never be agreement upon it.
I agree the new stadium is bland and the area around it is just like everywhere else now, it's all steel and glass. If it was up to me I'd have actually re-built Watkins Folly that would have been much more interesting.
The trolley park has a great history in the US. (Amusement parks built by trolley companies as a destination for people to ride to on the weekend) Many have disappeared, but one of those surviving is the excellent Kennywood Park near Pittsburgh, which is home to 3 of the 10 oldest roller coasters in the US. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennywood
Yes agree Sean, Kennywood is an excellent example of an original Amusement Park of yesteryear which I have visited twice on my numerous theme park trips to the US from the UK. First trip was in 97 and rode the incredible 'Steel Phantom' then a few years later rode the replacement 'Phantom's Revenge'.
Hello, Jago - our paths cross again thanks to your lovely and good-humoured postings. I grew up in Canons Park, now on the Jubilee Line but previously on the Bakerloo and before that on the Metropolitan, ie, the only stretch of the Tube ever on three successive lines. The Stanmore branch was the Met's last branch. Before the branch was built, Neasden Station was Neasden for Kingsbury - as you say, it was very much open ground. So much so that for a few years around 1918 to 1922, the open greeny area was used to test tanks - as in military tanks. One last note regarding Eiffell, back in 1980 I went on one of the most beautiful and scenic railways I had ever traveled on. It left Jerusalem and went down to the coast at Tel Aviv (previously Jaffa.) Some of the little bridges were designed by the same Eiffell. Keep up the good work, Jago! Michael, Toronto.
Moral of the story: When you change the Building's design... change the Foundations too!. Screwups with the latter - past & present - weren't uncommon, as demonstrated by the [now former] Paddington Church, and a certain building project of recent years - which shalt remain nameless - where the CAD Technicians sent out plans with the foundations Upside Down... only to realize their mistake and inform a very irritated construction crew... after the latter had started the ground floor. (the whole thing had to be started over... from scratch)
Actually I did know about Watkin's Folly though it has been sometime since I first read about it. You have to wonder whether a better use of the areas could have been found. As the Victorians were keen on organised sports I am surprised he did not build a sports stadium there himself. I once read of a Parisian who would go everyday to the Eiffel Tower in order to drink his coffee in the cafe there. He did so not because he had any affection for the tower, on the contrary he absolutely hated it. But it was the only place in Paris where he could drink his coffee and not have to look up and see the tower. Interesting way to deal with a problem.
Another superb video and we learned something new, thanks! Your videos have become a little "a few minutes out of our busy day" for my husband and I and this one was just in time before getting stuck into work in earnest. 👍
A large platform made out of steel not living up to expectations and being an embarrassing eyesore. Well, I’m glad that no one ever made that mistake in London again.
"The London 𝑺𝒕𝒖𝒎𝒑" ~ I love it !! That so needs to be a "thing". ✔😁 Another great little documentary, Thank you. I wish these were just a bit longer though. I'm still binge-watching your back catalogue and enjoying every little nugget.👌 👍😁
Just another great video! Not to mention that I have once asked for this very particular subject. As for the Wembley area I believe there is way more to talk about. Alone the station names, weren‘t from the beginning like there are as of today. Wembley Park used to be just Wembley I guess, and present name Wembley Central was also slightly different? Another thing I would like to point out is, that the Wembley „high street“ is in fact named Wembley High Road. The „real“ High Street goes onto Wembley Hill, more or less in the middle of the triagle with edges at Wembley Park Station, the Park, and the Stadium. Seems to be the part of original, „real“ old Wembley village. At the very top of the Hill on - you guess it - Wemble High Street - it is still an old pub, and the car park. During sport events often full of coaches (car park) and supporters (pub). There is also the train station under modern built „White Horse Bridge“, at the old good line from Paddington to Rugby and further. Again, nice video! Please, keep them coming :) PS What about some Art Deco buildings in the NW London? The not-so-far Perivale‘s Hover Building would be a good one to start with.
Another of Watkins ideas was the London extension of the Great Central Railway opened in 1899. Probably constructed 30 years too late, it struggled to complete with the Midland and LNWR railways & it finally closed in 1969. Some seriously believe it should be reopened as a credible alternative to HS2 even though it doesn’t go anywhere near Birmingham.
Awesome, never knew of this. I went to wembley in 2013 for the capital one cup final, 2 years before I started trainspotting so I didn't note numbers down (annoying to me now). More recently, I was surprised that I could see wembley stadium so clearly from near the end of the met/pic branch of the tube, around Ruislip which is about 7 miles away. Or more recently on my trip to Greenford, which is almost 5 miles from wembley stadium.
Just had another thought about Watkin. The Metropolitan was trying at first to be the in-town get you around keep your feet clean move you quickly system. The outward extention to literally pastures new turned it into the suburban system of NW London - thus allowing the Great Central not to bother too much with incoming stopping services from its intercity plans, but in creating the suburbs it also ceased any real idea of being the inter urban crossrail of its day, which had been his ultimate idea. Pity really we could have had if not high speed at least pretty good middling speed North of England to South of England services (which takes us back to the thought of a Big Five (Great Central/Met and arguably North London/LTS ( with LTS becoming effectively District and Southend) instead of the big four, overlaid .on the London Transport/BR network .
The original magnificent landscaped Wembley Park was beautiful, even with Sir Edward’s quarter-completed folly in it. What a shame the park was lost to development. Perhaps that would have happened anyway if the tower had been completed. It looks like there are a lot more new huge towers in Wembley these days...
@beetooex. I’d love to, but it’s kind of hard given the quarantine. And that I live in Australia. And that even if I _were_ of legal drinking age, I don’t think I’d be the type of person to drink alcohol anyway. Thanks for the offer, though.
Don't need to drink to have fun. It's all good. You can bring Marty & Moog with you when you come. Jago probably knows Geoff & Vicki. I'll see if I can get RMC Neil out.
I wonder how tall the arch on the modern stadium is compared with how tall Watkins's Folly would have been if completed? When I was very young I went on a school trip to Wembley, where we were given a slideshow presentation of the site, and I thought the unfinished tower was called the Watford tower. It looked strange to me, as a trapezoid structure being called a tower. There was a boom and a picture of red and yellow flames, to show that the tower was brought down by explosives.
Their is an book that covers Watkins tower ' London Has It Might Have Been' along with other abandoned ideas . When Wembley Stadium was rebuilt in 2002 did anyone photo the towers foundations by any chance?
Great story! And btw, I've been watching off and on all afternoon (California here!) and you've gained 400 additional subs. Started at 48k now 48.4. By tomorrow I'm predicting you hit the 50k mark - congratulations! This is a really great channel.
As a not so proud American I find this to be fascinating. A look into Britain’s inner mechanisms and history. In America, nothing is even close to being so steeped in history. Along with that, it has that British “reserved gentlemen” feel about it.
I am reminded of the joke often told that the difference between Americans and British is that Americans think 100 years is a long time, while British people think 100 miles is a long distance. We have history too (some history can still be found within our borders that predates the founding of our country) but indeed England has much more of it packed into a much smaller area. When I can step out of my door without a mask on my face again would love to spend some time in London seeing the places mentioned in these videos for a while (when I can find the time and money to do so).
Surprised you didn't mention that the rubble from the stadium was dumped in Northfields and you can go up the hills they made. It's right next to the A40
Though only a six legged structure, It seems to me, that the developers of Anno 1800 decided to use the Wembley Tower's design as the basis for their "Iron Tower" Monument, as it bears a striking resemblance to the original design for Wembley Tower, though not as big
Watkins Folly is fairly well know to the residents of Brent. I don't think it would have survived due to the local councils attitude to historical buildings. When people petitioned to have the original towers of Wembley Stadium incorporated into the new stadium it was kicked out and the towers were demolished.
@@JagoHazzard - You've got to love these Victorian and Edwardian nutters with too much money, haven't you. Whittaker Wright's underwater billiard room is my favourite.
Sort of ties in with the ambitious vision of the GC Sheffield - London Extension with linking to Paris through a proposed Channel Tunnel, where in 1899 you had a railway but no tunnel - in 1999 thanks to the controversial Beeching closures, you had tunnel but no railway!
Shame that Jago couldn't go to the bar that was called Watkin's Folly. That closed down a couple of years back, although as a Wemblian? (Is that even a term for someone who lives in Wembley???)
I must admit that I did not know anything about the tower! That was interesting! Ever thought about doing a vid on the Crystal Palace? Great video BTW ;-)
Maybe the site is cursed? I seem to remember that the building of the monumental arch of the new Wembley stadium on the same spot was also a bit of 'problem ' and had technical difficulties with the initial construction company giving up and walking away.
Maybe Watkins should had asked the Mayor of Blackpool to help, Blackpool Tower was completed in 1894, after the Mayor was also inspired by the Eiffel Tower.
I was not expecting a prequel meme :D
This video is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be... unnatural 😵
A suprise to be sure, but a welcome one
I wasn’t expecting you either :D
Can a Tube line have the high ground?
@@bentilbury2002 it even has the ability to create new content.
I love the Darth Plaguis reference at the start
Also, the last line is a (perhaps unintentional) reference to Futurama.
A football pitch? At Wembley Park? That would never catch on!
foot-ball? It's the game of peasants, it will never catch on!
@@lkrnpk now cricket, that's the sport of kings. That will become THE sport of the masses that every man and his dog will want to watch and fill cricket grounds every single week, mark my words!
Maybe They were geniuses and knew Football would be a success those Victorians were bloody smart
Having been born in Penge and living my early years in that area, I always had a fondness for the Crystal Palace television transmitter mast which I thought of as a British version of the Eiffel Tower.
As a student in the early 60s I was always impressed with the TV tower at Crystal Palace. That's where I changed buses after visiting my girl friend (later wife) in Streatham Hill on my my back to my digs in Woolwich. I once missed the last bus and had to walk all the way from Crystal Palace to Woolwich.
There is the urban legend that goes round London of American tourists going on the London Eye and mistaking the transmitter for the Eiffel Tower. I would love to believe that. Being from Blackpool, I'm delighted that Watkins failed and New Brighton got pulled down. What a meanie!
With 2020 hindsight it becomes obvious that Watkins backed the wrong horse. Had he opted to build the world's biggest Ferris wheel imagine what he would have started.
There was already a ferris wheel running at that time at the Great Indian exhibition.
Way out of Jago's geographical area, another impressive tower was actually built near Liverpool. New Brighton Tower was a steel lattice observation tower at New Brighton in the town of Wallasey, on the Wirral. It stood 567 feet high, and was the tallest building in Great Britain when it opened around 1900. However, it only lasted until 1921, when it was discovered that maintenance neglect, necessitated because of World War One, had made it unsafe and meant it had to be demolished, with associated buildings going as late as 1969. Yet virtually nobody has ever heard of it. The story is on RUclips/Wiki.
The superior Blackpool tower, would have brung a lot more life to Brighton had they kept it.
His voice is perfect for the style of video he's making. Very informative video, I'll gladly watch more!
Thanks!
That was a great story - and well told, IMO.
I knew nothing of this tower before.
BTW - the tower with trains winding up the side was my favourite.
Not the best looking - but what a train ride that would be.
No dislikes, straight facts and a interesting story
Poor Watkin, visionary, but also shortsighted, No point copying the Eiffel tower. It had to have its own purpose as Wembley Stadium later showed.
Well, Tokyo Tower is a thing.
(also Blackpool)
Well Watkin wanted via his channel tunnel to get to paris. he also wanted a bigger erection for London to outdo the french capital - he said so in a letter
He certainly was a visionary - he had also been responsible for the first attempt, and got some way with the necessary boring, at the Channel Tunnel in 1880. :)
@@highpath4776 Don't understand this wish for bigger erections, there's a physical limit to how much pleasure one can derive from them 🍆
There used to be a pub a short walk from Wembley Park station called Watkins Folly.
It's bizzare. I stand on those exact spots everyday . To think I never knew this
Your subs have exploded, it seems. On your way to 50K. Well deserved.
I take some pride in having been around watching since early on.
Much appreciated!
And now, four months later, tantalisingly close to 100K.
@@JagoHazzard it's fantastic content and well deserved success
The tower is mentioned on the John Betjeman "Metropolitan Line", but I like the extra detail you give here :) Keep up the excellent documentaries!
Hello from Wembley. ❤️
Wembley is mentioned in The Doomsday Book, as land belonging to a Saxon landowner called Wemba, hence Wemba's ley which is Saxon for a field. ❤️
Currently the local council is promoting the new retail park, over the actual town centre, in fact they didn't even put Christmas decorations on our high road, but they put them in the retail park which is a tourist attractions and of little use to the actual locals, except for a large Tesco's. Bit like the tourists who go to Bicester, only to go shopping and ignore the town and it's historical places. In our case that includes a Victorian parish church remodelled by a famous architect, one of the Gilbert Scott family. 🙄
Reminds me, of the world expo (1958) in Brussels: They wanted a monument similar to the Eifel tower. One of the ideas was building another Eifel tower but this time upside down. Luckily they didn't proceed otherwise we would have ended with a Monty Python kind of mockery. Instead, they built something with big balls.
Mr Watkins gave us so much and great image of the Tower.
Note to self, secure full financing before attempting to construct a tower in excess of 1000ft.
Also change the foundations if changing the design.
@@jimtaylor294 DId it inspire Hornby with Meccano ?
@@highpath4776 Meccano was inspired by Dockyard Cranes, but the largest - or at least Tallest - item ever assembled from Meccano, was a model of the Effel Tower.
The longest though; was James May's work, in a build done in Liverpool.
@@jimtaylor294 Wasnt that done with the modern, steel finish meccano - ?
@@highpath4776 Freshly manufactured aye, in Calais France; albeit made with tooling that came from Meccano's former Binns Road factory in Liverpool.
(the latter having operated from 1914 till 1978)
A public house near the beginning of Empire way running up to the stadium was named “Watkins folly”, but that had to close due to lack of support also.
There was a thing about towers over here: Blackpool, Brighton and Wembley. I think Brighton got completed, but didn't make it to WW2, and Blackpool has been doing very well, a national institution irritating the hell out the French at being quintessentially all that's British Seaside with fun, warm ale, fried food, and wondrous tat galore beneath their contempt. I think Eiffel knew what was on the cards and wanted no part of it.
It probably would have been ideal for Marconi, Tesla, Baird, Reith etc to test their radio, wireless electricity and tv systems. It would have been very profitable, with quite a fight for space and the risk of complaints from little old ladies in Frien Barnet getting a fright each time they turned on the toaster and it spontaneously burst into flames to The Bee Song.
Actually, it was the tall New Brighton Tower in The Wirral (not Brighton on the South Coast) that was built in 1900 and demolished in 1919. Edward Watkin was a forceful entrepreneur and chairman of a whole slew of railway companies from Manchester to London and beyond, and his ambition was to complete a Manchester to Paris link via a Channel Tunnel, in which he also had an interest. 'Watkin's Folly' at Wembley was just a side-show in the greater scheme of things. Well worth researching!
Fried Barnet?
@@edwardsadler7515 The Great Central Railway? Now that is worth researching!
Tsk! - New Brighton- oops, silly me- so much for memory.
@@highpath4776 That would certainly clear the sinuses! Frien Barnet is a suburb, also used in slang as barnet for haircut.
They started building a tower at Morecambe, but it was never finished. There were plans to build them at other seaside resorts, but no others were started.
I used to play in the exhibition grounds during the war. The concrete of the switchback railway was still extant.
Why not do a video on the Wembley Exhibition.
When they were selling off stuff afterwards my eldest brother bought a large pair of leather bellows. They stood in our garden for years. I used to pump them by standing on them
I have a toffee tin with lithos of the exhibition. Lots of exhibitions with railways, (Crystal Palace, White City, )( need to do one on the millenium dome for April 1st.
Your narration style is wonderfully similar to listening to my 'Thomas the Tank Engine' audio tapes as a kid.
Had those too. Good times.
Being considered similar sounding to Willie Rushton is to my mind high praise indeed.
I tend to associate Jago's voice with Drachinifel's though.
Why does your voice sound like a part monotone discovery history documentary series? I freaking love it!
It's a British thing ;-) .
The History Guy runs intonenation, he has just beaten ? Jago to the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs
Slightly sardonic - reminds me of John Finnemore
I think it has something to do with the larynx.
@@digitalcasio2704 Is that in Egypt?
Fascinating. I never heard of the tower before! I was born in London, lived in London over 50 years. Keep these films coming please!
Years pasted yet quality in england has gone nowhere! It is very strange to see that house building in UK has not developed at all, or even decreased. If you asked me, uk has no building standards at all compared to EU making it a 3rd world country. Only in UK you pay service charges living with peasants :D they dont even put any insulation between floors :Ddd they LOVE CARPETS as well :D
@@robertasmedu YAWN...
Another wonderful historical look at the unbuilt ... which, to me is as intriguing as that which was.
Yay! Was hoping you'd do one on this! Huge fan of your work and The Metropolitan! Bravo!
I remember my dad taking me round the area when I was a kid. In the industrial estate you'd still find remnants of the 1924 exhibition. Bits like the odd stone lion . That was about 50 years ago. I wonder if there's still some stuff left?
Good question! I might have to have a look.
@@JagoHazzard Have fun looking. I'd love too myself but I'm based in Snowdonia!
@@JagoHazzard I think most of the buildings went with the general recenter redevelopment, I think there were some film and tv studio and props use in the 1980s and logistics handling, take a look at some mid 1980s directories / early google street view,
@@JagoHazzard I'm sure I read before that there used to be a railway loop that ran through the industrial estate next to the stadium, and there was a station on that loop.
@@JagoHazzard Further to my last reply, this is the one I referred to. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wembley_Exhibition_railway_station. If you look at a satellite view of the area you can see some industrial buildings (on the road named 'Second Way') that look like they and the road were built to follow the curve of the line.
I see in the London Transport Collection there is a poster from 1980 showing special services (A stock or C stock ?) from Wembley to Barking for West Ham's FA Charity Shield Match v Liverpool
I actually could say I had heard of this as I do a talk about Blackpool Tower, as the two structures are inextricably linked.
The London Debenture Company was set up to basically "con" money out of other places to also have a tower, to help fund the failing Watkins one.
After they had taken the money and run, Blackpool's mayor, Alderman Bickerstaffe didn't want that slur on his town, so he organised real funding from friends and business acquaintances and of course it was a HUGE success, as it still is, as it improved on the Eiffel one by having lots of attractions inside as well to keep you ( and your wallet), there all day Not just a tower u could probably visit completely in an hour or two.
Ironically, if the LDC actually had built it, instead of just running off with the dosh, they could probably have fully funded ten Watkins Follies. Lol.
In the Blackpool Tower, on the "silver landing", there's a HUGE silver model of the Tower, given to Bickerstaffe, by the VERY happy tower company shareholders.
Think that says it all.
There was another built at New Brighton on the Wirral and a third proposed for Douglas on the Isle of Man that never happened.
They planned to send messages between the three using ships semaphore flags. They did for a while between the two at Blackpool and New Brighton, but I guess it got a bit boring after a while. Lol.
Cheers, very interesting.
@@streetrambler134 Oh thank you. U r welcome
You can see the blackpool tower from the high point of the rollercoaster in Southport. (well you can see it from the sands ground level at Southport too.
Just discovered these videos and am instantly a fan.
Great videos. I wish all history learning was like this...where every event has some association with a real object and place. It makes it easier to remember.
Something felt so reassuringly British about a vision that was simultaneously vainglorious, futile, stodgy and not a total cock-up in the end.
It's amazing how rural it was, not that long ago really.
"Trolley parks" at the ends of transit lines were a common way to drive ridership in the 19th- and early 20th-century US as well. Often the line would work well as a commuter line on weekdays, but the park could be used to bring in some extra revenue on weekends, and they would gradually evolve from mere gardens to amusement parks. Only a few of these are still around--my home amusement park, Canobie Lake Park, is one of them, though the associated trolley line is long gone.
I remember being taken on a special train round the circular Wembley Exhibition line (in the late 1950s) which had its own station that was later used for football crowds. I think the area is an industrial estate now.
It’s amazing to see how this land developed. To Wembley stadium then I the middle of fields and now the new one , almost hidden behind housing blocks.
Shocking how people multiply like insects.
It was quite common in London - once electric trains got out to the suburbs, the sprawl followed.
I still find it a pity that they pulled down Wembley Stadium. It's like if they would propose to pull down the Olympic Stadium in Amsterdam. People would write angry letters to newspapers, or more likely, utter death threats on social media.
The fact that the towers weren't saved - as originally planned - certainly was a crime against architecture.
Did you go to the old Wembley Stadium? To be honest it was extremely run down at the end of it's life and not fit for purpose, it was well overdue a replacement. Although I'm still not sure why we need a national stadium in the first place.
^ >ahem< of course it was run down and not fit for purpose... it was originally to have been a Temporary stadium XD.
The issue was never that it was replaced (that'd been demanded for decades), rather that the distinguishing bits of it weren't saved, contrary to prior assertions that they would be.
Whether something is flawless also seldom has anything to do with veneration.
After all: Richard Hawkins was well regarded, even though most of him didn't work.
@@mccstuff Put it this way... for me, the new Wembley is like so many other modern structures in London: no doubt architecturally a marvel, but no soul to it. Perhaps I'm biassed, because I used to live in Amsterdam, and there you gradually go from the 17th to the 21st century as you go further from the city centre. And I like the homogenous look of places like Paris, Florence, and even Rome. In London, you have a massive Ferris wheel next to old structures like the Houses of Parliament, or Tower Bridge. And this disjunction is all over London. But perhaps it's like the pyramid at the centre of the Louvre: there will never be agreement upon it.
I agree the new stadium is bland and the area around it is just like everywhere else now, it's all steel and glass. If it was up to me I'd have actually re-built Watkins Folly that would have been much more interesting.
The trolley park has a great history in the US. (Amusement parks built by trolley companies as a destination for people to ride to on the weekend) Many have disappeared, but one of those surviving is the excellent Kennywood Park near Pittsburgh, which is home to 3 of the 10 oldest roller coasters in the US.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennywood
Yes agree Sean, Kennywood is an excellent example of an original Amusement Park of yesteryear which I have visited twice on my numerous theme park trips to the US from the UK. First trip was in 97 and rode the incredible 'Steel Phantom' then a few years later rode the replacement 'Phantom's Revenge'.
Hello, Jago - our paths cross again thanks to your lovely and good-humoured postings. I grew up in Canons Park, now on the Jubilee Line but previously on the Bakerloo and before that on the Metropolitan, ie, the only stretch of the Tube ever on three successive lines. The Stanmore branch was the Met's last branch. Before the branch was built, Neasden Station was Neasden for Kingsbury - as you say, it was very much open ground. So much so that for a few years around 1918 to 1922, the open greeny area was used to test tanks - as in military tanks. One last note regarding Eiffell, back in 1980 I went on one of the most beautiful and scenic railways I had ever traveled on. It left Jerusalem and went down to the coast at Tel Aviv (previously Jaffa.) Some of the little bridges were designed by the same Eiffell. Keep up the good work, Jago! Michael, Toronto.
In a parallel universe, this structure was completed and became a famous landmark
Moral of the story: When you change the Building's design... change the Foundations too!.
Screwups with the latter - past & present - weren't uncommon, as demonstrated by the [now former] Paddington Church, and a certain building project of recent years - which shalt remain nameless - where the CAD Technicians sent out plans with the foundations Upside Down... only to realize their mistake and inform a very irritated construction crew... after the latter had started the ground floor.
(the whole thing had to be started over... from scratch)
My man just quoted star wars in a train video - you’ve got yourself a new sub. Excellent stuff as always!!
Actually I did know about Watkin's Folly though it has been sometime since I first read about it. You have to wonder whether a better use of the areas could have been found. As the Victorians were keen on organised sports I am surprised he did not build a sports stadium there himself.
I once read of a Parisian who would go everyday to the Eiffel Tower in order to drink his coffee in the cafe there. He did so not because he had any affection for the tower, on the contrary he absolutely hated it. But it was the only place in Paris where he could drink his coffee and not have to look up and see the tower. Interesting way to deal with a problem.
I spent part of my childhood living so close to the stadium you could hear the cheering from the crowds inside.
What a shame! So even back then, we couldn't complete on time! This was so informative, thank you 💕
Another superb video and we learned something new, thanks! Your videos have become a little "a few minutes out of our busy day" for my husband and I and this one was just in time before getting stuck into work in earnest. 👍
A prequel meme, you are a man of culture
Really interesting this one. I never knew about a wembley tower!
A spiral tower with a railway running up it... it really couldn't get anymore British than that
Nice reference to Star Wars at the start there, very good.
Brilliant Work, Sir!
Loved John Betjeman's doco on Metro-land too!
Are you familiar with it?
A large platform made out of steel not living up to expectations and being an embarrassing eyesore. Well, I’m glad that no one ever made that mistake in London again.
"The London 𝑺𝒕𝒖𝒎𝒑" ~ I love it !! That so needs to be a "thing". ✔😁
Another great little documentary, Thank you. I wish these were just a bit longer though.
I'm still binge-watching your back catalogue and enjoying every little nugget.👌 👍😁
I really enjoyed that, learned something new today. Thanks. I love your deadpan delivery.
I very much like the stadium, thanks. At least it has its uses.
Nice to hear Eiffel pronounced correctly.
oh i love the Wembley tower story!
Also congrats on your channel growth, 6 thousand in a couple of days!
Just another great video! Not to mention that I have once asked for this very particular subject. As for the Wembley area I believe there is way more to talk about. Alone the station names, weren‘t from the beginning like there are as of today. Wembley Park used to be just Wembley I guess, and present name Wembley Central was also slightly different? Another thing I would like to point out is, that the Wembley „high street“ is in fact named Wembley High Road. The „real“ High Street goes onto Wembley Hill, more or less in the middle of the triagle with edges at Wembley Park Station, the Park, and the Stadium. Seems to be the part of original, „real“ old Wembley village. At the very top of the Hill on - you guess it - Wemble High Street - it is still an old pub, and the car park. During sport events often full of coaches (car park) and supporters (pub). There is also the train station under modern built „White Horse Bridge“, at the old good line from Paddington to Rugby and further. Again, nice video! Please, keep them coming :) PS What about some Art Deco buildings in the NW London? The not-so-far Perivale‘s Hover Building would be a good one to start with.
I dont know the history of the Wembley Area , I had an uncle that lived in Harrow.
4:08 That's a textbook 60Hz shutter with 50Hz mains frequency right there 😉
Yeah noticed it too....bit annoying.
Another of Watkins ideas was the London extension of the Great Central Railway opened in 1899. Probably constructed 30 years too late, it struggled to complete with the Midland and LNWR railways & it finally closed in 1969. Some seriously believe it should be reopened as a credible alternative to HS2 even though it doesn’t go anywhere near Birmingham.
Great piece of history. It must've had been wonderful to show the world another piece of British engineering knowledge.
Awesome, never knew of this. I went to wembley in 2013 for the capital one cup final, 2 years before I started trainspotting so I didn't note numbers down (annoying to me now). More recently, I was surprised that I could see wembley stadium so clearly from near the end of the met/pic branch of the tube, around Ruislip which is about 7 miles away. Or more recently on my trip to Greenford, which is almost 5 miles from wembley stadium.
Just had another thought about Watkin. The Metropolitan was trying at first to be the in-town get you around keep your feet clean move you quickly system. The outward extention to literally pastures new turned it into the suburban system of NW London - thus allowing the Great Central not to bother too much with incoming stopping services from its intercity plans, but in creating the suburbs it also ceased any real idea of being the inter urban crossrail of its day, which had been his ultimate idea. Pity really we could have had if not high speed at least pretty good middling speed North of England to South of England services (which takes us back to the thought of a Big Five (Great Central/Met and arguably North London/LTS ( with LTS becoming effectively District and Southend) instead of the big four, overlaid .on the London Transport/BR network .
The original magnificent landscaped Wembley Park was beautiful, even with Sir Edward’s quarter-completed folly in it. What a shame the park was lost to development. Perhaps that would have happened anyway if the tower had been completed. It looks like there are a lot more new huge towers in Wembley these days...
Property developers are having a field day there, now the view of Wembley stadium is becoming more obscure.
When you said the folly was unearthed when the original wembely stadium was demolished, had it been buried, or was it used for support somewhere?
Indeed, it was the foundations.
@Larry Bundy Jr.
Do you just watch every British RUclipsr ever?
@@TotoDG Nah. He's just a fellow nerd. We usually share the same interests. We should all go for a pint one day.
@beetooex.
I’d love to, but it’s kind of hard given the quarantine. And that I live in Australia. And that even if I _were_ of legal drinking age, I don’t think I’d be the type of person to drink alcohol anyway. Thanks for the offer, though.
Don't need to drink to have fun. It's all good. You can bring Marty & Moog with you when you come. Jago probably knows Geoff & Vicki. I'll see if I can get RMC Neil out.
Big fan of the Blackpool Tower. You should do an episode on that one.
I wonder how tall the arch on the modern stadium is compared with how tall Watkins's Folly would have been if completed? When I was very young I went on a school trip to Wembley, where we were given a slideshow presentation of the site, and I thought the unfinished tower was called the Watford tower. It looked strange to me, as a trapezoid structure being called a tower. There was a boom and a picture of red and yellow flames, to show that the tower was brought down by explosives.
Loved this video, also a little visited London related topic you managed to cover
Great video, you have a good voice for narration. I would probably not care about this subject but the narration kept me interested.
Their is an book that covers Watkins tower ' London Has It Might Have Been' along with other abandoned ideas . When Wembley Stadium was rebuilt in 2002 did anyone photo the towers foundations by any chance?
Great story! And btw, I've been watching off and on all afternoon (California here!) and you've gained 400 additional subs. Started at 48k now 48.4. By tomorrow I'm predicting you hit the 50k mark - congratulations! This is a really great channel.
Old Wembley Stadium looked far better than the new boring one
A very good piece of work. Thank you!
So, basically London had the Eiffel Tower AND the Leaning Tower of Pizza, all-in-one! What a tourist trap!😄😄
As a not so proud American I find this to be fascinating. A look into Britain’s inner mechanisms and history. In America, nothing is even close to being so steeped in history. Along with that, it has that British “reserved gentlemen” feel about it.
I am reminded of the joke often told that the difference between Americans and British is that Americans think 100 years is a long time, while British people think 100 miles is a long distance. We have history too (some history can still be found within our borders that predates the founding of our country) but indeed England has much more of it packed into a much smaller area. When I can step out of my door without a mask on my face again would love to spend some time in London seeing the places mentioned in these videos for a while (when I can find the time and money to do so).
You could always nick Blackpool Tower whilst Blackpool sleeps. ;)
What a cool channels. Very happy to find this
You may have referenced Blackpool Tower or New Brighton tower, both taller than the French thing, since it was a fashion thing in those days
wow, i checked this channel right on time
I could have predicted this folly from day one,if only that Watkins had looked for my advice!
Knew about the tower before hand, courtesy of Sir John Betjeman Metro-land film.
👍
Surprised you didn't mention that the rubble from the stadium was dumped in Northfields and you can go up the hills they made. It's right next to the A40
Great story
Though only a six legged structure, It seems to me, that the developers of Anno 1800 decided to use the Wembley Tower's design as the basis for their "Iron Tower" Monument, as it bears a striking resemblance to the original design for Wembley Tower, though not as big
Love these tales :)
When you play Transport Tycoon with a mod that allows you to place your own cities so your trains have somewhere to go...
Does it have theme parks added to it ?
Watkins Folly is fairly well know to the residents of Brent. I don't think it would have survived due to the local councils attitude to historical buildings. When people petitioned to have the original towers of Wembley Stadium incorporated into the new stadium it was kicked out and the towers were demolished.
Wasn't there a similar plan by a similar person to build a vast pyramidal necropolis?
There was, I’m currently looking into it for a possible future video.
@@JagoHazzard - You've got to love these Victorian and Edwardian nutters with too much money, haven't you. Whittaker Wright's underwater billiard room is my favourite.
Great video dude give me Mark Felton vibes
I described him to my Dad as the tone and dry wit of Drachinifel, just talking about tube trains instead of torpedo tubes.
That's fairly interesting.
great video - theres a picture of the old wembley under construction and you can see the foundations of the tower in the middle of the pitch
The Palace of Engineering was for many years the home of Eastern Kayam one of the largest importers of hand made carpets, especially Chinese.
Sort of ties in with the ambitious vision of the GC Sheffield - London Extension with linking to Paris through a proposed Channel Tunnel, where in 1899 you had a railway but no tunnel - in 1999 thanks to the controversial Beeching closures, you had tunnel but no railway!
Crazy how quickly your subs have gone up! Glad for you! No longer grinding for one or two subs a day. Nearly at 100k
I understand that the debris from the old stadium was used to build those ridiculous hills at Northolt.
That is correct. It is called Northala Fields.
Shame that Jago couldn't go to the bar that was called Watkin's Folly. That closed down a couple of years back, although as a Wemblian? (Is that even a term for someone who lives in Wembley???)
Great video 👍
I must admit that I did not know anything about the tower! That was interesting! Ever thought about doing a vid on the Crystal Palace? Great video BTW ;-)
Maybe the site is cursed?
I seem to remember that the building of the monumental arch of the new Wembley stadium on the same spot was also a bit of 'problem ' and had technical difficulties with the initial construction company giving up and walking away.
Maybe Watkins should had asked the Mayor of Blackpool to help, Blackpool Tower was completed in 1894, after the Mayor was also inspired by the Eiffel Tower.
I suspect the Blackpool Tower had better planning.
@@JagoHazzard As surely did the one at New Brighton!
But...that would mean going north of Cambridge!
Not done old boy, not done!
@@voiceofraisin3778 Except the Cholmondeley set, wack!
It was sort of the other way round. If you can find it, maybe look at my comments. It should explain the link