Wembley Stadium, then known as the Empire Stadium, was opened in 1923. Anyone arriving at Wembley Park station to visit the Stadium had to first cross a road and some railway lines, and then negotiate the extensive buildings and gardens of the British Empire Exhibition. For part of the route there was a wide avenue called Kingsway. This 1935 map shows a pedestrian tunnel under the railway line. A 1946 aerial photograph does not show any clear continuous route.
Following WW2, with plans for the 1948 Olympics to be held at Wembley, a walkway was created, labour being partly provided by German prisoners of war. Its renaming as ‘Olympic Way’ was marked with a plaque at the Wembley Park station end.
But Olympic Way was created as a road, with match crowds having to make do with inadequate pavements. The 1960 FA Cup Final crowds spilled out onto the road. The photo on this page is dated 1986.
Planning permission for the pedestrianisation of Olympic Way was granted in 1991 (so late). The scheme included widening the subway under Bridge Road and linking a new Olympic Square beside the station with the full-width pedestrian route to the stadium. It was opened as the Bobby Moore Bridge in September 1993.
In 2023 another plaque, at the Wembley Stadium end, was unveiled.
Football fans tend to call this route Wembley Way.
Sources: primarily Legacy Brent.
