Moving On.

This time last week, I was getting up at stupid o'clock, going to a place where I didn't particularly want to be and doing things I didn't really want to do.

It was known as work!

Today, I got up when I felt like it. I mooched about for a bit, then I came here, doing not very much apart from sitting in the sun, drinking decent coffee, watching the World (or at least a very small part of it) passing by and listening to the birds sing their hearts out.

I can now do this whenever I like (weather permitting!)

This is known as retirement.

Highly recommended.

By the way, "here" is Holland Park, without any doubt, the best park in London and don't let anyone tell you any different. I have been coming here all of my life, from a baby in a pram to the grey haired, near OAP that I am now

Peacocks and Tortoises.

My last post concerning the 60^th anniversary of Holland Park had at least one glaring omission. I failed to mention the park’s most distinguished residents. You can often hear them before you see them. Sometimes you see them watching from the tops of walls, or roosting in the trees but more often you see them strutting around as if they own the place, which in a manner of speaking, they do!

 

I suspect that there have been peafowl  living here since the earliest days of the estate. They have always been valued for their decorative qualities, as well as occasionally ending up on the dinner table. Originating in India, it has been suggested that they were brought to Europe by Alexander the Great. Who knows, but what is certain is that they were to be seen on the great estates well before the Tudor period.

There have been other exotic birds in the park. A few years ago we had crowned cranes, an emu and even a very bolshie turkey, who huffed and puffed around, inflating his wattles and flushing from an almost blue white to bright red in an effort to show  that he was the top bird around there! Sadly, all of those are long gone, leaving the peacocks to rule the roost, but let’s face it, if you want a living breathing show of colour and arrogance, a peacock is hard to beat. You just have to love them!

Something that had passed me by until quite recently is the fact that the offspring of a peacock and a peahen is known as a peachick. Logical if you think about it, but funny all the same!

However, there is something else lurking in a far corner of the park. A little off the beaten track and probably missed by the majority of park visitors there are a pair of giant tortoises. Admittedly, they are cast in bronze rather than living flesh, but they are no less impressive for that. Created as part of a giant sundial titled Tortoises with Triangle and Time (2000), they were sculpted by Wendy Taylor (who is also responsible for Timepiece, the sundial by Tower Bridge) and were commissioned to mark the new millenium. You will find them on the western edge of the park, adjacent to Abbotsbury Rd.

 

Going Dutch

The Queen's Diamond Jubilee isn’t the only 60year old thing to be celebrated this year. 1952 was the year that my favourite London park opened its gates to the public for the first time. Since being wheeled around it by my Mum in pram and pushchair in its early days, to sitting with a coffee and a book, listening to the birdsong and contemplating early retirement in 2012, it’s always been part of my life.

 

At 54 acres, Holland Park is the only remaining fragment of the original 500 acre estate of Sir Walter Cope which, in modern terms, stretched from Holland Park Avenue to Earl’s Court tube station. The house was built in 1605 and was originally known as Cope’s Castle.  It is known that the castle was visited by King James the First on several occasions.

The next owner of the estate, was Cope’s son in law, Henry Rich, 1st Earl of Holland, who came to a sticky end. His Royalist activities resulted in him losing his head, after which the house became an army headquarters at which Oliver Cromwell was a frequent visitor.

At the time of the Restoration the estate was returned to the Rich family and it was then that the name Holland House was adopted.

During the 19^th century, whilst in the hands of the 3rd Lord Holland, the house became a noted meeting place for the prominent social, political and literary figures of the day, including Byron, Macaulay, Disraeli, Dickens and Scott. In the latter part of the 19^th century, the land began to be sold off for development until the estate was finally reduced to its present size.

Shortly before the outbreak of World War II the house hosted its last great ball which was attended by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. Then in September 1940 the house was largely destroyed by enemy bombing, never to be rebuilt. The estate and the ruins of the house were purchased by the London County Council from the 6^th Earl of Ilchester and is currently under the stewardship of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.

There are still signs of the estate’s former grandeur to be found in the park. The remains of the house are now part of the YHA hostel and also form the backdrop to the annual Opera Holland Park. The Orangery is a gallery and event space. The adjoining summer ballroom, the Belvedere, is a restaurant, and the Ice House is another small gallery. There is a formal garden, a Japanese garden, a sports field, a decent cafe and best of all a large wooded area which is a haven for a wide range of flora and fauna. 

As I said, I have been enjoying the park all of my life. From a baby in a pram, to a boy at Holland Park School, right through to the grey haired sixty year old sitting here tapping out this nonsense.

Check it out for yourself. Visit and enjoy.

A Commonwealth Institution

Last week I took advantage of the wonderful London Open House weekend to visit the Commonwealth Institute for the first time in over 40 years.Long closed and gently decaying, it was revealing its interior to the World for one last time before extensive changes are made in order that it can become the new home of the Design Museum in 2014.

 

 I have always loved this building, perched, as it is, on the edge of Holland Park (which also happens to be one of my favourite places in our City). My first visit to the Institute was as part of a school group, unsurprising really as my school was only about 10 minutes walk away, but I went several times after, either on my own or with friends.

In many ways, it was a dry and dusty place, full of the sort of  stuff that, if it were in the Science Museum or the Natural History Museum, you would hurry  past on the way to something more exciting. The production of cocoa or sugar cane not being the most interesting thing to a teenage boy! I think, perhaps, that I would get more from the exhibits now than I did then. However, although I probably didn’t understand why at the time, the building was fascinating. Details of its design and construction have been well covered elsewhere, so I will just say that it seemed to be more like the set of a James Bond film than a museum……and that roof was just something else! 

 Opened by the Queen on the 6^th November 1962, it gave sterling service promoting the Commonwealth and providing educational services to thousands of school children. It was closed, suddenly and controversially in 2002. Since then the building has had a very rocky ride, with a whole string of proposals and objections and all the time deteriorating year by year.

 Now, it has a future, it’s not a future that pleases everyone but then what would. The exterior is Grade 11* listed and is regarded by English Heritage as the second most important modern building in London (after the Royal Festival Hall) but the listing does not follow through to the interior. Design Museum representatives were a little cagey about the planned changes to the inside but I’m pretty sure that we can assume they’ll be extensive.  

 I think that we have to be practical here. It is currently a wonderful space and it will be a great shame to lose it, but it was originally designed for a specific purpose and that purpose has now passed.  To make it useable, and the future of the building is entirely dependant on it being useable, change has to be accepted. We can only hope that those changes are as sympathetic as possible.

Did I mention the flagpoles? They’ve been a feature of that part of Kensington High Street for so long. Visible even when the Institute is largely hidden by the trees. Whatever happens to the rest of the building, I hope they keep the flagpoles. They look fantastic…….even without the flags!

There are more of my pics here but, as I am unable to fly, there is an excellant photograph of the complex hyperbolic paraboloid copper roof here. The Evening Standard article itself is no longer relevant, except to show just part of the complex and troublesome history of this wonderful building.