Membership Discount Cards and Subscriptions 2025

Payment for 2025. If the order form included within your Spring newsletter is green, it means that on 15 March 2025 your membership discount card will expire, and you will no longer be able to enjoy the discounts that go with it. To enjoy this benefit, please renew your membership now. All subscriptions were due on 1 January, except for those who joined after 1 September 2024. 

There are several ways to renew your membership. You can send a cheque, payable to The Friends of Holland Park, to Margaret Rhodes, 25 Princedale Road, London W11 4NW. You can also pay online HERE.

Standing order for 2026 onwards. You need to pay the 2025 membership subscription now, but it helps us if you complete a bank Standing Order form, as it means your membership payment will be paid by your bank each year, and you will not have to remember to do it. You cannot complete a Standing Order form on our website, but you can use the one on the back of the green order form with this newsletter. 

Donations. Some members choose to add a donation, which is appreciated. If you pay through our website, you can donate by clicking on a very obvious yellow button on the home page.

Membership rates. Membership is £12 a year, or £9 for the over 65s. Joint subscriptions, for two people at the same address, cost £20, or £15 where both are over 65.  

Our records are not infallible, so do contact Graham Franklin on 07802 761 548 or ggfranklin3@aol.com if you have a query.

However you pay, we are most grateful for your support, as the more members we have the more influence we can bring to bear in achieving our priorities for this wonderful park.

By Rhoddy Wood

[February 2025]
 

Dates for your Diary – events in Holland Park

The events listed below are either organised by The Friends (F), or organised by the Ecology Service (ES), most of which are sponsored by The Friends.

Sat. 8 Mar. Blue Badge guided tour. History of Holland House and the families that lived there. Last chance to see conserved building before it closes for the opera season. Must book. £10. F  2.30-4pm.
Thurs. 3 April. Spring Tree Walk, led by Trevor Bowyer. Free, but must book.  ES 5-7pm.
Sun. 6 April. Blue Badge guided tour. Statues, sculptures and Art in the park. Must book. £10. F    2.30-4pm. 
Sat. 5-Sun.13 April. Friends Art exhibition in the Holland Park Orangery. Free to visit. F  10.30am-6pm.
Wed. 9 April. Friends’ AGM, 7.30pm. For members only. Update on plans for the park and chance to ask questions and share your views. Please contact Jennie Kettlewell on 020 7243 0804 or jennie.kettlewell@thefriendsofhollandpark.org  to let her know you will attend.
Tues. 29 April. Spring plant walk with Dr Mark Spencer. Free to attend, but must book. ES 6-8pm
Sat. 17 May.   Blue Badge guided tour. History of the Gardens and Pleasure Grounds. Must book. £10.      F 2.30-4pm.         
Wed. 18 June.  Tree identification walk in Holland Park, led by Dr Alan Harrington. Free to attend. No need to book. Meet by The Friends’ noticeboard in the Café Yard.  F 11am-1pm.
Sat. 21 June. Blue Badge guided tour. History of the gardens. Must book. £10.  F 10.30-noon. 
Sat. 28 June. Butterfly and Moth morning. Free to attend but must book. ES 10am-12noon.  

The Ecology Service (ES) events can be booked on Eventbrite.  

The Friends’ (F) Blue Badge tours can be booked on our website HERE, or by contacting Jennie Kettlewell on 020 7243 0804, or  jennie.kettlewell@thefriendsofhollandpark.org.  Unless otherwise instructed when you book, meet by The Friends’ notice board in the Café Yard.

Holland Park Conservation Volunteers (adults) meet on the third Saturday of each month from 10.30am to 3.30 pm. Tasks focus on practical conservation that helps deliver the Ecology Service management plan and might include dead-hedging, scything, pond clearing and maintaining the paths in the Wildlife Enclosure. If you want to join, or find out more, please email Gerry Kelsey, idverde’s Training and Community Manager, at Gerald.Kelsey@idverde.co.uk. 

[February 2025]

Guided walks in Holland Park

Every Thursday we meet at 10.30 am in the Holland Park Café and embark on a short, but not strenuous walk around the park. The walk, which embraces the woodlands, flower walks and Kyoto Garden, is led by two volunteers and lasts around 45 minutes. Afterwards we have tea and coffee and wide-ranging conversation in the café which has been generous in accommodating us.

It is a group of around 15 or so, generally over 60s, all abilities and all friendly. Everyone is welcome and, barring drinks, participation is free and above all enjoyable and informative, as we observe the park's changing seasons in the course of each year.

At 3pm every Thursday there is a group meeting to do a Nordic walk around the park. This is instructor-led and Nordic walking poles are provided. Nordic walking is beneficial for heart, lungs and posture, without being too exhausting. In fact you should emerge refreshed and energised. It is excellent exercise for all ages and especially for over 60s, as it improves general fitness, and it has also proved beneficial as rehabilitation. 

Simon Grantham, Volunteer walk leader.  

[February2025]

Those we miss

Barrie Maclaurin

Barrie joined RBKC as Parks Manager in 2004 and his role doubled overnight when RBKC merged services with Hammersmith and Fulham. He retired in March 2014, and moved to Wales with his partner, Jeff. He is remembered for many good reasons, not least his sense of humour and clever way of getting round bureaucracy. The sculpture Tonda was easily approved as ‘a replacement garden ornament’ rather than an art installation! 

A passionate interest in Japanese gardens worked to our advantage. Barrie visited some of the great gardens of Japan and learned from master gardener Yasuo Kitayama.  This resulted in great care and attention to accuracy in our own Kyoto Garden when it was refurbished in 2011. When the Emperor and Empress of Japan visited in 2012, it was Barrie who showed them round the Kyoto and Fukushima Gardens.

When he retired, he joined The Friends as a member and kept in close touch, making his final visit to Holland Park with Jeff in March 2024. I last saw them in October 2024 in their Cardiff home, a happy occasion although Barrie was evidently not well. Sadly, he died on 2 December. 

It is hard to sum up the very great contribution Barrie made to Holland Park. In a tribute to Barrie’s skill and diplomacy, he was voted the most Inspirational Leader of the Year in the 2013 RBKC staff awards. And, in 2017, he received the prestigious Japanese Sato Award, which is presented to individuals and organisations for outstanding achievement in fostering exchange between Japan and other countries on the subject of parks and green spaces. 

We miss Barrie’s friendship and helpful advice on Japanese gardens, though that has been given from a distance for over 10 years. 

Jennie Kettlewell

Mary Spain 

We regret to report the death of Mary Spain on 17 November 2024. Mary joined The Friends in the early 1980s, but I first became fully aware of her in 1996. She then offered to join the team of newsletter deliverers which I was forming. Unlike others, she would not come to my flat to collect newsletters. Instead she said that, if I would bring them to her, she would stuff the envelopes and deliver and give me tea. She did this for every newsletter except two from then to Covid. Once was when she cracked her skull (leaving her with permanent tinnitus), and once was to recover from a breast cancer operation.

Mary was involved with many other local organisations and was willing to share news about The Friends with them. Whenever the Campden Hill Society produced a newsletter she asked me what she should say about the Friends’ doings. She also gleaned news about us from her membership over some years on the Holland Park Liaison Committee.  She was a real help in spreading the word about The Friends.

During Covid our regular meetings had to stop, but Mary went on delivering newsletters brought to her door, and this continued when Margaret Rhodes took over managing the deliverers.  When in June of last year, Mary announced her retirement, it must have been part of her final settlement of her affairs. She worked for the Friends for 28 years, one of the longest of any.  Rest in peace, a good and faithful servant. 

Rhoddy Wood

[February 2025] 

News Update as at 3 February 2025

Head Gardener

Owen Rogers has been Holland Park’s head gardener for the past six years. We are sad to tell you that he left idverde at the end of January to take up a new role. The search is on to find a new head gardener with the wide range of knowledge and skills that Owen demonstrated. Horticultural knowledge is of course important, but so is leading and motivating a team and all the financial and administrative skills the role entails. He had a flair for design, as can be seen in the Iris Garden and the floral displays in the Dutch Garden.

Meanwhile, idverde has an excellent team in Holland Park to keep the gardens up to scratch until a new head gardener arrives. We wish Owen well and thank him for all the imagination and hard work he has brought to the job.

Photo: © Channel 5

Teaching circles

The Ecology Service has commissioned building of teaching circles in the West Woodland and Wildlife Enclosures. They are now completed, are truly a work of art and look beautiful. The work was carried out  by Dominic Edge-Bovair of The Woven Fence Ltd, and the hazel came from a coppice that he is restoring in Hayley Wood, Cambridgeshire. idverde’s Gerry Kelsey and his team of volunteers have added bark chip and brought in seating logs and those school children who have already visited are absolutely delighted with their ‘outdoor classroom’. The Friends have agreed to fund the £7,000 cost of the three teaching circles and are pleased to note that their predicted life will be at least 10 years.

Photo: RBKC Ecology Service.

Park closures

Regular visitors to the park will have noticed that parts of the park have been closed on several occasions recently. This is for safety during storms and we seem to have had a few of those. The policy is to close the north of the park, the Adventure Playground and the Outdoor Gym when there is a Yellow Weather Warning, to avoid any danger from falling branches. At these times, access to the park is through the gates in the southern part of the park. Should there be an Amber Weather Warning, the whole park would have to close. RBKC Parks Management are aware of the inconvenience closures cause, but safety is a priority.  

Wildlife monitoring

The Holland Park butterfly transect recorded a 55% reduction in population numbers in 2024,  compared to 2023, but the same eight species were represented. This decline was reflected nationally, leading Butterfly Conservation to decare a Butterfly Emergency. This is thought to be due to a combination of habitat loss and poor weather. A borough-wide bat survey will be commissioned in 2025, as there has not been one since 2010. 

Photo: Andrew Wood

Second award for Allies and Morrison
Conservation architects, Allies and Morrison, won a second award for their excellent work on Holland House. This was a commendation in the Conservation category at the New London Awards, held in  November 2024. Commendations were not awarded in every category, but only where they were considered to be merited. Conservation attracted many entries and was highly competitive, so the award is all the more pleasing. 

[February 2025]

Summer party in the park

Monday, 21 July 2025, 6-8pm in the marquee east of the Dutch Garden
Save the date in your diary and we will give more information in our summer newsletter, on our park noticeboards and on our website, saying when and how you can book. The party is for members of The Friends only, though members are welcome to buy a ticket for a guest. It is the perfect place for a summer party, as the marquee offers a fine view of the seasonal planting in the formal garden and gives shelter from the sun, if we are lucky, and the rain if we are not.

[February 2025]

New discount offer for The Friends!

The Builders Arms

This friendly local pub, dating back to the 1800s, is one of the most established watering holes in the area and a cornerstone of the neighbourhood’s history. The building has been lovingly restored, retaining many of its original Georgian features. The main room is wood-paneled with an open fire in winter, and there is a pretty flowered terrace as well as a private function room. The menu offers delightful snacks and sharers, succulent chicken, meat-free treats, and classic pub dishes - something for everyone. 

Offer: 
10% discount on food and drink, with a maximum group of 6. 
Not valid on drink without food.

1 Kensington Court Place, London W8 5BJ 
www.thebuildersarmskensington.co.uk       t. 0207 937 6213.

 Photo: The Builders Arms from their website.

[February 2025]