Kensington Roof Gardens
| The Roof Garden | |
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| Type | roof garden |
| Location | 99 High Street Kensington London |
| Coordinates | 51°30′4″N 0°11′31″W / 51.50111°N 0.19194°WCoordinates: 51°30′4″N 0°11′31″W / 51.50111°N 0.19194°W |
| Area | 6000 m2 |
| Created | 1936–1938 |
| Founder | Trevor Bowen |
| Designer | Ralph Hancock |
| Open | yes |
| Status | listed |
| Designation | Grade II |
| Website | roofgardens |
The Roof Garden (formerly known as Derry and Toms Roof Gardens and Kensington Roof Gardens) is a roof garden covering 6000 m2 (1.5 acres) on top of the former Derry & Toms building on Kensington High Street, in central London, in The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Since the 1980s the garden has been used as a restaurant and club.
The gardens are not visible from Kensington High Street.
Derry and Toms department store was opened in Kensington in 1933. The gardens were laid out between 1936 and 1938 by Ralph Hancock, a landscape architect, on the instructions of Trevor Bowen (then vice-president of Barkers, the department store 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 until 1975. Since the 1980s the garden has been used as a restaurant and club.
The Roof Garden was listed as a Grade II site by English Heritage in 1998.
It is divided into three themed gardens:
99 Kensington High Street entrance on Derry Street. The street-level entrance to the roof gardens.
One of the windows in the walled garden.
Plaque in the garden showing Trevor Bowen, director of Barkers of Kensington
Ralph Hancock Commemorative Plaque, unveiled by members of the Hancock family on 29 January 2012
One of the pink flamingos that live in the gardens
A tent in the Spanish garden
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Wikipedia