page_title: Holland House
section_title: Partial destruction in the Blitz
hierarchical_section_title: Holland House / 20th century / Partial destruction in the Blitz
caption_attribution_description: English: Original caption: "HOLLAND HOUSE BADLY BURNED. WS/57. Holland House, Lord Ilchester's historic 17th. Century house, has been damaged during the recent air raids on London. An oil bomb started a fire on one of the towers and a 'Molotoff breadbasket' and a shower of incendiaries fell on the building. Firemen saved the east wing from complete destruction, but the rest of the house is a shell. Holland House, just off Kensington High-street, was London's great Whig salon in the 18th century and the home of Charles James Fox, and also earlier, of Joseph Addison, founder of the Spectator. Photo shows - The famous library containing a number of valuable and historical books was completely wrecked. FOX. OCT. 23rd. 40. [7]"&#91;1&#93; The spectacle of the three men shown inspecting books in the library was likely staged for propaganda purposes.&#91;2&#93;
context_page_description: Holland House, originally known as Cope Castle, was an early Jacobean country house in Kensington, London, situated in a country estate that is now Holland Park. It was built in 1605 by the diplomat Sir Walter Cope. The building later passed by marriage to Henry Rich, 1st Baron Kensington, 1st Earl of Holland, and by descent through the Rich family, then became the property of the Fox family, during which time it became a noted gathering-place for Whigs in the 19th century. The house was largely destroyed by German firebombing during the Blitz in 1940 and today only the east wing and some ruins of the ground floor and south facade remain, along with various outbuildings and formal gardens. In 1949 the ruin was designated a grade I listed building and it is now owned by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
context_section_description: In 1939, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth attended the debutante ball of Rosalind Cubitt, the last great ball held at the house. The following year, on 7 September, the German bombing raids on London, the Blitz, began. During the night of 27 September, Holland House was hit by twenty-two incendiary bombs during a ten-hour raid. The house was largely destroyed, with only the east wing, and, miraculously, almost all of the library remaining undamaged. Surviving volumes included the sixteenth-century Boxer Codex.
caption: An interior view of the bombed library at Holland House with readers (1940)
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "5065", "Image ImageLength": "3917", "Image BitsPerSample": "8", "Image Compression": "Uncompressed", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "1", "Image ImageDescription": "HOLLAND HOUSE, Kensington, London. An interior view of the bombed library at Holland House with readers apparently choosing books regardless of the damage. Photographed in 1940. The House was heavily bombed during World War II and remained derelict until 1952 when parts of the remains were preserved.\nHolland House, originally known as Cope Castle, was a great house in Kensington in London, situated in what is now Holland Park. Created in 1605 in the Elizabethan or Jacobean style for the diplomat Sir Walter Cope, the building later passed to the powerful Rich family, then the Fox family, under whose ownership it became a noted gathering-place for Whigs in the 19th century. The house was largely destroyed by German firebombing during the Blitz in 1940; today only the east wing and some ruins of the ground floor still remain.\nIn 1940, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth attended the last great ball held at the house. A few weeks later, on 7 September, the German bombing raids on London that would come to be known as the Blitz began. During the night of 27 September, Holland House was hit by twenty-two incendiary bombs during a ten-hour raid. The house was largely destroyed, with only the east wing, and, miraculously, almost all of the library remaining undamaged. Surviving volumes included the sixteenth-century Boxer Codex.\nHolland House was granted Grade I listed building status in 1949, under the auspices of the Town and Country Planning Act 1947; the Act sought to identify and preserve buildings of special historic importance, prompted by the damage caused by wartime bombing. The building remained a burned-out ruin until 1952, when its owner, Giles Fox-Strangways, 6th Earl of Ilchester, sold it to the London County Council (LCC). The remains of the building passed from the LCC to its successor, the Greater London Council (GLC) in 1965, and upon the dissolution of the GLC in 1986 to the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.\nToday, the remains of Holland House form a backdrop for the open air Holland Park Theatre, home of Opera Holland Park. The YHA (England and Wales) &quot;London Holland Park&quot; youth hostel is now located in the house. The Orangery is now an exhibition and function space, with the adjoining former Summer Ballroom now a restaurant, The Belvedere. The former ice house is now a gallery space. The grounds provide sporting facilities, including a cricket pitch, football pitch, and six tennis courts.\nIn 1962, the Holland estate sold a piece of land immediately to the south of what is now the sports field for the construction of the Commonwealth Institute.", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "1", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Windows (PHP JPEG Metadata Toolkit v1.12)", "Image DateTime": "2014:08:30 12:50:06", "Image Copyright": "English Heritage", "Image ExifOffset": "2940", "Image Artist": "", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "5065", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3917"}