Holland Park is an area ofKensington, on the western edge ofCentral London,[1] that lies within theRoyal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and largely surrounds its namesake park, Holland Park.
Holland Park contains some of the most expensive residential streets in London and the United Kingdom, includingAddison Road,Holland Villas Road andIlchester Place.[2][3] Past and present residents includeSir David andVictoria Beckham,Sir Elton John,David Cameron,Ed Sheeran,Sir Richard Branson, andRobbie Williams, among others.[4][5] The small neighbourhood is further home tothe embassies of several countries, includingAzerbaijan,Ukraine,Greece,Jordan,Russia andLebanon.
The area is principally composed of tree-lined streets with largeVictorian mansions and cultural tourist attractions such as theDesign Museum andLeighton House, luxury spas, hotels, and restaurants alongHolland Park Avenue andKensington High Street.
Holland Park is located betweenNotting Hill andSouth Kensington, west ofKensington Gardens andHyde Park. While there are no official boundaries, the Holland Ward was historically bounded byKensington High Street to the south,Holland Road to the west,Holland Park Avenue to the north, andKensington Palace Gardens to the east.
Adjacent districts areNotting Hill to the north,Earl's Court to the south, andShepherd's Bush to the west.
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 aJacobean mansion calledCope 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 includethe Royal Crescent andAubrey 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 theCampden Hill Square area.
In the late 19th century, a number of notable artists and art collectors (includingFrederic Leighton,P.R.A. andVal Prinsep), known as theHolland Park Circle, lived in the area, especially inMelbury Road andHolland Park Road.
Lansdowne House, at Lansdowne Road. is aGrade II listed eight-storey building which was originally constructed in 1902–04 by the Scottish architect William Flockhart,[6] for the 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 wereCharles Ricketts,Charles Haslewood Shannon,Glyn Philpot,Vivian Forbes,James Pryde, andFrederick Cayley Robinson, who are commemorated on ablue plaque on the building.[7]
The building underwent significant alterations. When, in 1957, the record producerDenis Preston was looking for a property in which to set up a recording studio, his assistant engineerJoe Meek found the premises, which had unusually high ceilings and a basementsquash court, suitable for conversion into a studio. Preston, Meek and (a year later) the engineerAdrian Kerridge then established the studio, and made their first recordings there in 1958. The studio was London's first independent music recording studio.[8] In 1962 an enlarged control room overlooking the studio floor was opened. Kerridge later became the studio's owner.[9] The studios closed in 2006 and the building was subsequently converted into 13 self-contained apartments, while retaining a small recording studio.[7]
Holland Park is part of theKensington and Bayswater constituency for elections to theHouse of Commons of the United Kingdom, represented byLabourMPJoe Powell since2024.[10]
Holland Park is part of theHollandward for elections toKensington and Chelsea London Borough Council.[11]
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The park covers about 22.5 hectares (56 acres),[12] 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 theSecond World War in 1940, but the ruins and the grounds were bought by London County Council in 1952 from the last private owner, the6th Earl of Ilchester.[13] Today the remains of the house form a backdrop for the open air Holland Park Theatre, which is the home ofOpera Holland Park. To the immediate south of the park is the former site of theCommonwealth Institute, now home to theDesign Museum.
The park contains a café, as well as the Belvedere Restaurant that is attached to theorangery, a giant chess set,[14] a cricket pitch, tennis courts, two Japanese gardens - the Kyoto Garden (1991) and Fukushima Memorial Garden (2012),[15] ayouth 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.[16]
In the northwest of the park nearAbbotsbury Road, installed in 2000, is the outdoor sculptureTortoises with Triangle and Time byWendy Taylor, commissioned by theRoyal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea for theMillennium celebrations.[17]
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