Kensington Roof Gardens
Encyclopedia
Roof garden
A roof garden is any garden on the roof of a building. Besides the decorative benefit, roof plantings may provide food, temperature control, hydrological benefits, architectural enhancement, habitats or corridors for wildlife, and recreational opportunities....
covering 6,000 m² (1.5 acre
Acre
The acre is a unit of area in a number of different systems, including the imperial and U.S. customary systems. The most commonly used acres today are the international acre and, in the United States, the survey acre. The most common use of the acre is to measure tracts of land.The acre is related...
s) on top of the former Derry and Toms building on Kensington High Street
Kensington High Street
Kensington High Street is the main shopping street in Kensington, west London. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London....
, in central London
Central London
Central London is the innermost part of London, England. There is no official or commonly accepted definition of its area, but its characteristics are understood to include a high density built environment, high land values, an elevated daytime population and a concentration of regionally,...
, in The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea
Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea
The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea is a central London borough of Royal borough status. After the City of Westminster, it is the wealthiest borough in England....
. They are the largest roof garden in Europe Facilities include a restaurant and club.
The gardens are not visible from Kensington High Street
Kensington High Street
Kensington High Street is the main shopping street in Kensington, west London. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London....
, however the property can be identified by the Virgin flags flying from the top of the building. The gardens are open to the public unless pre-booked by a private party. They are accessible from Derry Street, through a doorway marked "99 Kensington High Street". The nearest tube
London Underground
The London Underground is a rapid transit system serving a large part of Greater London and some parts of Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Essex in England...
station is High Street Kensington
High Street Kensington tube station
High Street Kensington is a London Underground station at Kensington High Street.The station is on the Circle Line between Gloucester Road and Notting Hill Gate, and the District Line between Earl's Court and Notting Hill Gate. It is in Travelcard Zone 1....
.
History
Derry and Toms department store was opened in Kensington in 1933. The gardens were laid out between 1936 and 1938 by Ralph HancockRalph Hancock
Ralph Hancock was a Welsh landscape gardener and author. Hancock built gardens in the UK in the 1920s, 30s and 40s and in the United States in the 1930s...
, a landscape architect
Landscape architect
A landscape architect is a person involved in the planning, design and sometimes direction of a landscape, garden, or distinct space. The professional practice is known as landscape architecture....
, on the instructions of Trevor Bowen
Trevor Bowen
Trevor Bowen , is an English actor and screenwriter who has appeared frequently in United Kingdom television dramas since the mid 1960s.-Early life:...
(then vice-president of Barkers, the department store
Department store
A department store is a retail establishment which satisfies a wide range of the consumer's personal and residential durable goods product needs; and at the same time offering the consumer a choice of multiple merchandise lines, at variable price points, in all product categories...
giant that owned the site and constructed the building). They cost £25,000 to create and visitors were charged 1 shilling to enter. Money raised was donated to local hospitals and £120,000 was raised during the next 30 years.
The building housed the department store Derry and Toms until 1973, and then Biba
Biba
Biba was an iconic and popular London fashion store of the 1960s and 1970s. It was started and primarily run by the Polish-born Barbara Hulanicki with help of her husband Stephen Fitz-Simon.-Early years:...
until 1975.
The Gardens has been listed as a Grade II site by the English Heritage in 1978.
The Roof Gardens have been owned by Sir Richard Branson
Richard Branson
Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson is an English business magnate, best known for his Virgin Group of more than 400 companies....
since 1981, and are part of Virgin Limited Edition
Virgin Limited Edition
Virgin Limited Edition, part of Richard Branson’s Virgin Group of business ventures, is a collection of vacation retreats around the world.The sites are selected for their prime locations and attractive surroundings and together comprise a collection of some of the world’s prime real estate.-...
- the luxury portfolio of Virgin Hotels Group Ltd.
The Gardens
It is divided into three themed gardens:
- a Spanish gardenSpanish gardenA traditional Spanish Garden is a style of garden or designed landscape developed in historic Spain, incorporating principles and elements of garden design from precedents in ancient Persian gardens and Islamic gardens, and the great Moorish gardens of the Al-Andalus era on the Iberian Peninsula...
, in a Moorish styleMoorish architectureMoorish architecture is the western term used to describe the articulated Berber-Islamic architecture of North Africa and Al-Andalus.-Characteristic elements:...
based upon the AlhambraAlhambraThe Alhambra , the complete form of which was Calat Alhambra , is a palace and fortress complex located in the Granada, Andalusia, Spain...
in Spain, with fountainFountainA fountain is a piece of architecture which pours water into a basin or jets it into the air either to supply drinking water or for decorative or dramatic effect....
s, vineVineA vine in the narrowest sense is the grapevine , but more generally it can refer to any plant with a growth habit of trailing or scandent, that is to say climbing, stems or runners...
-covered walkways and Chusan palms; - a Tudor style garden, characterised by its archways, secret corners and hanging wisteriaWisteriaWisteria is a genus of flowering plants in the pea family, Fabaceae, that includes ten species of woody climbing vines native to the eastern United States and to China, Korea, and Japan. Aquarists refer to the species Hygrophila difformis, in the family Acanthaceae, as Water Wisteria...
. RoseRoseA rose is a woody perennial of the genus Rosa, within the family Rosaceae. There are over 100 species. They form a group of erect shrubs, and climbing or trailing plants, with stems that are often armed with sharp prickles. Flowers are large and showy, in colours ranging from white through yellows...
s, lilies and lavenderLavenderThe lavenders are a genus of 39 species of flowering plants in the mint family, Lamiaceae. An Old World genus, distributed from Macaronesia across Africa, the Mediterranean, South-West Asia, Arabia, Western Iran and South-East India...
contribute the rich summer scent to the garden; - an English woodland garden, with over 100 species of trees, a stream, and a garden pondGarden pondA garden pond is a water feature constructed in a garden or designed landscape, normally for aesthetic purposes and/or to provide wildlife habitat.-Habitat:...
that is the home to pintail ducks and four flamingoFlamingoFlamingos or flamingoes are gregarious wading birds in the genus Phoenicopterus , the only genus in the family Phoenicopteridae...
s called Bill, Ben, Splosh and Pecks. There are over 30 different species of trees in the woodland garden, including trees from the original planting over sixty years ago, despite having only a metre of soil in which to grow. Although they are on a rooftop, the trees were made the subject of tree preservation orderTree preservation orderA Tree Preservation Order or TPO is a part of town and country planning in the United Kingdom. A TPO is made by a Local Planning Authority to protect specific trees or a particular area, group or woodland from deliberate damage and destruction...
s in 1976.
Restaurant and Clubhouse
The gardens surround a two storey Clubhouse which hosts private events such as conferences and parties and a private members club for up to 600 guests open on Friday and Saturday nights, and are situated 30 metres (100 ft) above street level (on the 6th floor of the building) with a panoramic view over west London through windows in the walled edge.In 2001 Babylon Restaurant was built on the 7th floor of The Roof Gardens, which now operates as part of the property. Babylon is open Monday to Friday for lunch and Monday to Sunday for dinner. Guests can see the English Woodland Garden from the terrace, and the flamingo pond from the private dining room. Babylon offers view west from Richmond Deer Park all the way round across South London to City Point in the east.
The Roof Gardens in fiction
The Derry and Toms Roof Gardens are a significant and recurrent location in the Jerry CorneliusJerry Cornelius
Jerry Cornelius is a fictional secret agent and adventurer created by science fiction / fantasy author Michael Moorcock. Cornelius is a hipster of ambiguous and occasionally polymorphous sexuality. Many of the same characters feature in each of several Cornelius books, though the individual books...
stories written by Michael Moorcock
Michael Moorcock
Michael John Moorcock is an English writer, primarily of science fiction and fantasy, who has also published a number of literary novels....
. They are the setting for the opening scenes of the second Cornelius novel, A Cure for Cancer
A Cure for Cancer
A Cure for Cancer is a novel by British fantasy and science fiction writer Michael Moorcock . It is part of his long-running Jerry Cornelius series ....
(1971), where Jerry encounters a helicopter firing on a party of tea
Tea
Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by adding cured leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant to hot water. The term also refers to the plant itself. After water, tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world...
-drinking old ladies in a satire
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
on the (then contemporary) Vietnam war
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
. The gardens also feature as the setting for a musical and dance extravaganza in Lorna Hill's "No castanets at the Wells".
It is also the opening location in Moorcock's comic novel The Chinese Agent
The Chinese Agent
The Chinese Agent is a comic novel by Michael Moorcock. It is a revision of Somewhere in the Night, which Moorcock published in 1966 under the pseudonym Bill Barclay...
, featuring Jerry Cornell.
External links
- Google Maps aerial picture of the gardens (added 9 May 2006)
- Greenroofs.com - pictures of this and other roof gardens in London (checked 6 September 2010)
- The Roof Garden's website (checked 6 September 2010)
- Ralph Hancock website (checked 6 September 2010)
- Virgin Limited Edition website (checked 6 September 2010)
- Ralph Hancock Blog (checked 6 September 2010)