Holland Park

Holland Park is an area of Kensington, on the western edge of Central London, that lies within the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and largely surrounds its namesake park, Holland Park.

Colloquially referred to as 'Millionaire's Row', Holland Park is among the most expensive residential areas in London and the United Kingdom. Past and present residents include David and Victoria Beckham, Sir Elton John, David Cameron, Ed Sheeran, Sir Richard Branson, and Robbie Williams, among others. The small neighborhood is further home to the embassies of several countries, including Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Greece, Jordan, Russia and Lebanon.

The area is principally composed of tree-lined streets with large Victorian mansions and contains shops, cultural tourist attractions such as the Design Museum, luxury spas, hotels, and restaurants along Holland Park Avenue and Kensington High Street.

Location and boundaries
Holland Park is located between Notting Hill and South Kensington, west of Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park. While there are no official boundaries, the Holland Ward was historically bounded by Kensington High Street to the south, Holland Road to the west, Holland Park Avenue to the north, and Kensington Palace Gardens to the east.

Adjacent districts are Notting Hill to the north, Earl's Court to the south, and Shepherd's Bush to the west.

History
The district was rural until the 19th century, and most of the area now referred to by the name Holland Park was formerly the grounds of a Jacobean mansion called Cope Castle. In the later decades of that century the owners of the house sold off the more outlying parts of its grounds for residential development, and the district which evolved took its name from the house. Large parts of Holland Park were constructed between 1860 and 1880 by master builders William and Francis Radford, who were contracted to build over 200 houses in the area. Notable 19th-century residential developments in the area include the Royal Crescent and Aubrey House. It also included some small areas around the fringes which had never been part of the grounds of Holland House, notably the Phillimore Estate (there are at least four roads with the word Phillimore in their name) and the Campden Hill Square area.

In the late 19th century, a number of notable artists and art collectors (including Frederic Leighton, P.R.A. and Val Prinsep), known as the Holland Park Circle, lived in the area, especially in Melbury Road and Holland Park Road.

Lansdowne House
Lansdowne House, at Lansdowne Road. is a Grade II listed eight-storey building which was originally constructed in 1902–04 by Scottish architect William Flockhart, for South African mining magnate Sir Edmund Davis. The building contained apartments and artists' workshops. Among the artists who had studios in the building in the early decades of the 20th century were Charles Ricketts, Charles Haslewood Shannon, Glyn Philpot, Vivian Forbes, James Pryde, and Frederick Cayley Robinson, who are commemorated on a blue plaque on the building.

The building underwent significant alterations. When, in 1957, record producer Denis Preston was looking for a property in which to set up a recording studio, his assistant engineer Joe Meek found the premises, which had unusually high ceilings and a basement squash court, suitable for conversion into a studio. Preston, Meek and (a year later) engineer Adrian Kerridge then established the studio, and made their first recordings there in 1958. The studio was London's first independent music recording studio. In 1962, an enlarged control room overlooking the studio floor was opened. Kerridge later became the studio's owner. The studios closed in 2006 and the building was subsequently converted into 13 self-contained apartments, while retaining a small recording studio.

The public park
The park covers about 22.5 ha, with a northern half of semi-wild woodland, central section of formal garden areas, and southernmost section used for sport.

Holland House is now a fragmentary ruin, having been devastated by incendiary bombing during the Second World War in 1940, but the ruins and the grounds were bought by London County Council in 1952 from the last private owner, the 6th Earl of Ilchester. Today the remains of the house form a backdrop for the open air Holland Park Theatre, which is the home of Opera Holland Park. To the immediate south of the park is the former site of the Commonwealth Institute, now home to the Design Museum.

The park contains a café, as well as the Belvedere Restaurant that is attached to the orangery, a giant chess set, a cricket pitch, tennis courts, two Japanese gardens - the Kyoto Garden (1991) and Fukushima Memorial Garden (2012), a youth hostel, a children's playground, squirrels and peacocks. In 2010, the park set aside a section for pigs whose job was to reclaim the area from nettles etc., in order to create another meadow area for wildflowers and fauna. Cattle were used subsequently to similar effect.

The Holland Park Ecology Centre (2013), operated by the borough's Ecology Service, provides environmental education programmes including nature walks, talks, programmes for schools, and outdoor activity programs for children.

In the northwest of the park near Abbotsbury Road, installed in 2000, is the outdoor sculpture Tortoises with Triangle and Time by Wendy Taylor, commissioned by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea for the Millennium.

Places of Interest

 * Aubrey House, large 18th-century detached house with two acres of garden, now a private residence
 * Debenham House, large 20th-century detached house in the Arts and Crafts style by architect Halsey Ricardo
 * Design Museum, large museum exhibiting product, industrial, graphic, fashion, and architectural design
 * Holland House, historic estate situated within the public Holland Park
 * Holland Park School, modern coeducational secondary school
 * Ilchester Place, frequently ranking as Britain's 'most expensive street'
 * Leighton House Museum, art museum and historic house formerly belonging to Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton
 * Opera Holland Park, summer opera company producing annual seasons of opera performances at Holland House in the park
 * The Tower House, privately owned Gothic revival mansion built by architect William Burges
 * Woodland House, large detached mansion built by architect Richard Norman Shaw