Although I visited back in late 2010, I had another opportunity to visit Holland Park over the Bank Holiday weekend. This time I went along in the company of Yannick Pucci, the London walking tour guide who focuses on this particular public space, and who is an expert on the wonderful Japanese Garden that sits at the heart of the park.
The 54 acre park was once the private grounds of Holland House – built in 1605 for Sir Walter Cope, the house became well-known when it was acquired by the the Third Baron Holland in the late 18th century (there’s a fine statue of a seated Henry Holland near the park’s main entrance). Throughout the 19th century and well into the 20th, the Hollands and then the Strangways ensured that this was the best venue for high society parties in London – members of the royal family, government ministers, high-ranking military officers, artists, novelists and poets were all regular visitors. In fact, the last ball to be held at Holland House (in August 1940) was attended by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth.
Unfortunately in September 1940 Holland House was seriously damaged by enemy bombing, with only the east wing and the library surviving. You can still see the remaining part of this Grade I listed building at the centre of the park today – or you could, if it wasn’t completely obscured by the group of white plastic and PVC buildings that have popped up around it to accommodate this year’s season of Opera Holland Park (something that the Friends of Holland Park are none too pleased about if the notes of their recent AGM are anything to go by).
Holland Park has lots of lovely features but it’s most striking is undoubtedly the Japanese Garden. Now I should start by saying that this is not one of the municipal ‘fakes’ that you’ll find here and there in London and elsewhere – this garden was donated by the Kyoto Chamber of Commerce in 1991 and was planned by one of Japan’s most pre-eminent designers (in fact a team from Kyoto return every year to ensure that the Japanese Garden remains up to standard). It has many of the classic features that you’ll find in the gardens of Japan’s Kansai region, including several types of stone lantern and a ‘shishiodoshi’ water basin – the lanterns represent the five aspects of Buddhist cosmology, while the water basin scares away birds. Interestingly, the ‘shishiodoshi’ is supposed to be heard but not seen (it is usually obscured behind trees or a fence) but Holland Park breaks with that tradition – you’ll find it just off the path soon after entering the garden.
Holland Park’s Japanese Garden also has a striking waterfall and several clusters of ‘tormented rocks’ (boulders stranded in the middle of the grass), as well as a pond which features a small island that is designed to loosely resemble a turtle (another important element in Buddhism). Although the garden is in some respects very strictly regimented, that is not to say that it doesn’t develop over time – in fact it acquired a new feature just last year when, in July 2012, the Japanese ambassador to the UK visited to unveil a new ‘Fukushima’ section of the garden. This area commemorates the 2011 disaster and represents something of a British/Japanese fusion – for one thing, you can walk on the grass here which is strictly forbidden elsewhere (and there are security guards on duty whenever the garden is open to ensure that visitors obey the rules). The Fukushima section also demonstrates another feature of Japanese garden design – a winding shingle path descends from a manicured vista of a distant cherry tree and a rock circle, meant to resemble the course of a stream.
Another feature worth seeing at Holland Park can be found in the Napoleon Garden – so called because until the 1940s it featured a large statue of the French Emperor (the current whereabouts of the statue are unknown). The second of three sculpture commissions from female artists can be seen in the garden until November of this year – Sinta Tantra’s ‘The Eccentricity of Zero’. Another bonus of my visit at the weekend, the artist actually accompanied us on our tour of the park – she regularly produces works of art for public consumption, and this particular piece consists of two offset circles of glass which are bisected by coloured reflective and translucent panels. It’s proving to be a real winner with small children – while we stood around discussing it with Sinta several kids were running around and through it, laughing and pressing their faces up against the glass…
I would recommend a visit to Holland Park at any time – it’s a wonderful space. If you want to make the absolute most of your visit you might want to consider going along in the company of Yannick on one of his regular walking tours, where you’ll get the real inside track on the park’s history – the Eventbrite booking page can be found here.