Holland Park, W8

, Derbyshire, England East Midlands

Recommendation added: 23/03/2006 17:41
By: jsimons128 (YSUK rating +93)

jsimons128 has been thanked 1 times for this contribution

"Less than 30 years ago Holland Park was the garden of a private house, and even now it retains that air of intimacy that is so perculiar to the inviolate. Its flock of peacocks and gaggle of geese mount solemn guard for the long gone inhabitants of the house, and visitors stoll on the smooth lawns where open air Kensington teas may have been held not too many years ago. In the 18 and 19th centuries the house here was a popular meeting place for the literary and and political personalities of the day. Onlt part of it now faces across the elegant quadrangle that it once dominated, but it is easy to imagine the intellectuals of the time threading though lighted rooms at the end of a summer evening. Macauley called V the favourite resort of wits and beauties, painters and poets, scholars, philosophers and statesman. Such people, jaded by the effort of creation or wearied by their excursions into the labyrinthe politics of high social life, must have found the park easy on the eye and relaxing to the mind.
That feeling remains, through the sparkling company and locked gates have gone. In springtime the dutch and Iris gardens are a constant delight to the visitor, especially the person who has unexpectantly stumbled upon this strange little haven while lost in the masonry heart of Kensington. Other flowerbeds show a wide range of plants, including the original caroline testout roses, and a charming show of native british plants. Also here is a yucca garden, where the mexican yucca plant guards its delicate clusters of white flowers with bunches of spear like leaves.
In contrast with the formal path and lawn layout, given a military air by the uniformed nannies who take thier small charges for walks here, is the free play area. This is woodland that has been left to its own devices for the benefit of the other children."