In 1908 the Franco-British Exhibition and the 1908 Summer Olympics came to London, the first of a number of major events in White City that attracted infrastructural investment by railway companies. Among others, the Metropolitan Railway opened its Wood Lane station on the Hammersmith branch to serve the event. The station opened and closed intermittently, and was renamed twice, to Wood Lane (White City) in 1920 and White City in 1947, before it closed in 1959 following fire damage.
In 2005 work commenced on the large-scale Westfield Shopping Centre. As part of the work, improvements were made to public transport including rebuilding Shepherd’s Bush Central line station, a new Shepherd’s Bush railway station and two bus interchanges. It was decided to build a new station on the Hammersmith & City line, just south-west of the old Metropolitan station on Wood Lane. In 2006 Transport for London decided on the name Wood Lane, reviving a historical name. This was the first time that a new station on the Tube had been given the name of a former station.
The station is close to the former BBC Television Centre and Loftus Road stadium is also nearby.