the vicinity of the metropolis there are few places so free from interruption as the grounds at Wembly; and, indeed, in the course of my experience, I have seen no spot within so short a distance of London more perfectly secluded ... Wembly is as quiet and retired at seven miles distance as it could be at seventy." Later, writing to a friend in May 1793, Repton wrote of Wembley "on Wednesday I go to ... a most beautiful spot near Harrow. I wish I could shew it to you." Repton often called the areas he landscaped 'parks', and so Wembley Park owes its name as well as its origins to Humphry Repton. The area landscaped by Repton was larger than the current Wembley Park. It included the southern slopes of Barn Hill to the north, where Repton planted trees and started building a 'prospect house' – a gothic tower offering a view over the parkland. Repton may also have designed the thatched lodge that survives on Wembley Hill Road, to the west of Wembley Park. It is in a style frequently used by him, known as "cottage orne". Humphry Repton was in the habit of recording his designs in Red Books, but the one for Wembley Park, which would answer this speculation, has not survived. Richard Page lost interest in Wembley Park, partly because he had inherited a fully completed Capability Brown (1716–1783) landscape at Flambards in Harrow, so the house itself was never remodelled by Repton. The tower on Barn Hill was never finished either. It became known as "Page's folly" (as with the later example of Watkin's Tower) and was eventually demolished. John Gray The house appears to have been sold to John Gray (died 1828), a London brandy merchant, in 1802. The Page family retained the Barn Hill part of the park, some 91 acres (77 hectares). Gray renovated and extended the house between 1811 and 1814, at a cost of £14,000. He may also be responsible for the late 18th- or early 19th-century cottage orné style lodge on Wembley Hill Road, if it was not built for Page by Repton. Whoever built it, it is thought to be the oldest property in Wembley. Even without the Barn Hill portion, the Wembley Park estate covered some 327 acres (132 hectares) from what is now Wembley Hill Road in the west to the River Brent in the