A new plaque was unveiled at Wembley to commemorate 75 years since the Olympic Way was opened ©ITG

Commemorative plaques have been unveiled at Wembley to mark the beginning and end of Olympic Way, the main thoroughfare to the stadium which hosted events at the 1948 and 2012 Olympic Games.

The road was originally constructed 75 years ago for the Olympics and opened by the 1948 Organising Committee chairman Lord Burghley and the British Government's Minister for Transport Alfred Barnes.

A stone tablet was placed at the start of Olympic Way close to the Wembley Park Underground Station, but was largely neglected after the 1948 Games until it was rediscovered last year by sports journalist and football historian Mike Collett.

"It was in a pitiful state of disrepair and this really upset me," Collett told insidethegames.

Wembley Mayor Abdi Aden, left, joins author Mike Collett and Margaret Winter, daughter of the engineer who built Olympic Way, at a ceremony to restore a commemorative plaque from 1948 ©ITG
Wembley Mayor Abdi Aden, left, joins author Mike Collett and Margaret Winter, daughter of the engineer who built Olympic Way, at a ceremony to restore a commemorative plaque from 1948 ©ITG

The Wembley History Society was alerted and property developers Quintain were persuaded to support its restoration.

"They have had a specialist stone mason in to repair the plaque and restore it to its former glory, and have landscaped the wasteland into a lovely little garden with plants and shrubs and a pathway to the plaque," Collett added.  

"They’ve done a grand job." 

Sculptor Louis Russell from Workingstone carried out the restoration work and also created a new plaque, which has been placed at the other end of Olympic Way foot of the stairway leading to the stadium.

This bears the Olympic Rings to commemorate the site of the 1948 Games and also displays the emblems of Brent Council and constructors Quintain.

The original Olympic Way had been built  before the 1948 Games with a work party drawn from German prisoners of war.

A similar plaque to the original was unveiled at the steps leading to Wembley Stadium ©ITG
A similar plaque to the original was unveiled at the steps leading to Wembley Stadium ©ITG

The project had been supervised by the Wembley Council's chief engineer Walter Steedman.

His daughter Margaret Winter was present for today's unveiling.

"I am very happy that it has been restored and that more notice is being taken of it and the part it played in the history of Wembley," she told insidethegames.

"It was obviously a very big project for him because he talked a lot about it when he came home and I never remember him talking about other work, and it was a big thing that the Olympics were coming to London."

During the Games, she watched the marathon runners begin their journey of 26 miles by running out along the Olympic Way made by her father.

"My dad was very proud of his work and he would have been very chuffed to see this," Winter added.

The Olympic Way is also set to  be temporarily renamed "Kings Way" in May and set to host an outdoor event celebrating the Coronation of King Charles III.