Holland Park

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Having got ‘Walking London’s Parks and Gardens’ we planned exploring Holland Park, west of Kensington Garden, on 30^th June.



We took the tube to High Street Kensington on District Line. The entrance of the park was along Kensington High Street. We went through the Iron Gate and walked through the poplar avenue, and turned let when we saw the remains of the Holland House. We walked past Open Air Theatre on the right and Sport Field on the left. This formal royal ground showed us remains of large houses and terraces to the north and west, and some of the formal gardens, laid out in the early 19^th century for Holland House. We found a distinctive round brick building, the Ice House, striking murals on the left side of the terraces, and rose garden, and started strolling through these instead of following the suggested route introduced in the guide book. It was lunch time. We found the picnic area to have lunch. Local school children came to the picnic area as we were having lunch – we shared the table.



Afterwards, we walked through Dutch garden featuring geometric parterre hedging of miniature box separated by paths. We saw lavenders, geraniums, scarlets and blue salviers on the beds.



We then followed the path to North Lawn and rambled through the woodland. We found the statue of Lord Holland stood by pigeons.



The Holland Park delights not only people but wildlife; it said 60 different wild bird species are seen in the park including woodpecker, tawny owl, sparrow hawk. The Lord Holland’s statue was surrounded by the pond; it seemed to be home for newts, frogs, and dragonflies. The woodland walk led us to place, which my camera’s GPS identified ‘Greek Embassy’. There are apparently lots of Embassy buildings around the north west of the Holland Park. I was amazed to see a little jungle space with collections of palm trees, tree ferns and sub-tropical plants.



This enchanting park also had an authentic Kyoto Garden, with tumbling cascade, stone lanterns, bridges and bonsai trees, donated by the Chamber of Commerce of Kyoto in 1991, and the Dahlia Garden.

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