Holland Park Platform

Holland Park Platform W

Notting Hill Entrance

Holland Park Entrance

Holland Park Platform

Holland Park Platform E

 

The original building was typical of those designed by Harry Bell Measures for the stations of the Central London Railway that opened on 30 July 1900. It was given a flat roof in the hope that commercial development would take place on top, as at Queensway station, but so far this has not happened. The district was rural until the 19th century. Most of it was formerly the grounds of a Jacobean mansion called Holland House. In the later decades of that century the owners of the house sold off the more outlying parts of its grounds for residential development, and the district which evolved took its name from the house. It also included some small areas around the fringes which had never been part of the grounds of Holland House, notably the Phillimore Estate (there are at least four roads with the word Phillimore in their name) and the Campden Hill Square area. In the late 19th century a number of notable artists (including Frederic Leighton, P.R.A. and Val Prinsep) and art collectors lived in the area. The group were collectively known as "The Holland Park Circle". Holland Park was for the most part very comfortably upper middle class when originally developed and in recent decades has gone further upmarket.

 

The tube station is named after Holland Park, a park in west London, although the term also refers to the residential area to the north of the park. The park contains a cafe as well as the Belvedere Restaurant that is attached to the orangery, a giant chess set, a cricket pitch, tennis courts, two Japanese gardens - the Kyoto Garden (1991) and Fukushima Memorial garden (2012), a youth hostel, one of London's best equipped children's playgrounds, squirrels and (impressively for a London park) peacocks. In 2010, the park set aside a section for pigs whose job was to reclaim the area from nettles etc., in order to create another meadow area for wild flowers and fauna. Cattle were used subsequently to similar good effect. The station has lifts and wi-fi.

 

Connections: London Buses routes 31, 94, 148 and 228 serve the station.