We need help with running events

We run bird walks, tree identification walks, Blue Badge tours, pop up stalls in the park, a summer party and a Christmas concert.  What we need is someone to join our friendly team to oversee all the events and work with the volunteers who run them. You can work from home and need to be proficient with Excel, preparing simple flyers and generating bookings. It isn't complicated and would probably take one day a week. If you think this might interest you, please contact Jennie Kettlewell on 020 7243 0804 or jennie.kettlewell@thefriendsofhollandpark.org to find out more.

[Summer 2026] 

Defibrillators in Holland Park

All Parks Police vehicles are equipped with a defibrillator and there is also one in the Holland Park Police Office in the Stable Yard. If you find someone in Holland Park in need of a defibrillator (not breathing or appears to be suffering a heart attack), please call 999. This alerts the London Ambulance Service. Any call made to the London Ambulance Service, concerning someone in our parks, is automatically forwarded to the Parks Police duty phone. This ensures the fastest possible response until an ambulance arrives.

[Summer 2026]

Friends & Neighbours discount programme

Our close neighbour, The Design Museum, has a new offer for our members. Exhibition Tickets:  10% off ticket, including a guest. Quote Holland Park Friends at the Till Point in the Museum.  HollandFriends10  https://bookings.designmuseum.org. Onsite & Online Shops:  10% off in Store and Online. Quote Holland Park Friends at the Till Point in the Museum.  HollandFriends10. https://designmuseumshop.com The Design Kitchen:  Quote Holland Park Friends when booking, and when you pay, to receive 10% off.  Email:  thedesign.kitchen@designmuseum.org

Pizza Express, 137 Notting Hill Gate offers members of The Friends a generous discount of 20% and the trustees have often chosen to hold meetings in the small private room at the back of the restaurant. We were surprised to hear that few people book that room during weekdays, as it’s a great space for children’s parties, celebration meals, meetings and games or quiz evenings. The same friendly staff will look after you.  

[Summer 2026] 

Holland House

You can’t see it now as it is screened by the opera canopy, but the architrave above the front entrance to Holland House is wobbly. It has been secured for safety during the opera season and will be repaired in the autumn. After removal of the strapping and a thorough visual inspection, there will be localised repairs of any cracks found and all will be made secure before cleaning to blend the repairs in with the surrounding finishes. There is also a small finial which will be rebuilt and repositioned.

Photo: Architrave above entrance.  © Phil Pring, Borras

[Summer 2026]

Financial challenges for Holland Park

You may remember that Cllr. Emma Will, Lead Member for Property, Parks & Leisure, wrote in our autumn 2025 issue that the Council is facing significant financial challenges over the next few years as a result of changes to the way the Government funds local councils. This has resulted in our Council needing to look hard at alternative ways of delivering services, what can be scaled back, and new ways of generating income. And it needs to be significant income. One of the options mentioned was an evening light trail.

Progress has been made on this initiative and the Council has been working with a company who they believe can deliver an event that is appropriate to the elegance of Holland Park, sensitive to the park’s fragility and has the lowest impact on everyday park users, while delivering sufficient income. Plans are still being discussed to ensure protection of trees, grass, historic buildings and other much-loved aspects of the park. The event will be ticketed to control numbers and will be attended by a security team. The trustees of the Friends are being kept informed and being given the opportunity to comment.

Big events in the park may not be welcome news to all, but the trustees understand the urgent need for income and are working with the council to guard against lasting damage. We have asked for further information on how grass areas will be protected, especially when they are wet or frosted. We have asked for the risk assessment to include the possibility of icy weather.

Planning and licensing consent may be needed, but it is more effective if there is clear communication in advance of that, so that questions are answered, concerns dealt with and the result is that people feel they have been listened to.

We will bring you further information when we have it. If necessary, we can inform our members via email rather than waiting until the autumn newsletter.

Jennie Kettlewell 

[Summer 2026]

Adventure Playground

RBKC regularly tests all the wooden play equipment in line with best practice guidance. This is to ensure the wood is sound. It has been decided that some equipment should be replaced and will be taken out of use as a precaution until this has been done. The equipment affected is fenced off.  Parks Management are aware of the popularity of this playground, apologise to any wee people who are disappointed when they visit, and are treating these repairs as a priority. 

Report on the 2026 AGM 

Trustees were delighted that some 80 loyal members attended the 2026 AGM. AGMs can be tedious, but we try to ensure ours is full of information with an opportunity to ask questions. All votes were carried.

·         Minutes of the 2025 AGM were approved.

·         Accounts for 2025 were approved and have since been filed with the Charity Commission.

·         All trustees were re-elected. 

·         Roger Foreman was re-elected as independent examiner.

Jennie Kettlewell reported on achievements in 2025: further progress on commissioning the conservation of the Old Dairy (£40k funded by The Friends, plus £40k from NCIL), renovation of the Café Yard drinking fountain (£2,347), funding woven hazel circles as outdoor classrooms (£7k), continuation of the proactive tree healthcare programme (£5,825) and funding of wildlife talks organised by the Ecology Service (£1,725). Some 23 events were carried out by The Friends during 2025, the largest being the Art Exhibition.

Secretary, Rhoddy Wood, expressed enjoyment at seeing so many members in the room and said every member was important to our ability to influence the future of the park. She thanked Margaret Rhodes and her team of 30 newsletter deliverers, who saved over £4,500 in postage. She emphasised the importance of paying the annual membership subscription on time in January (half of the members do this by bank standing order), because we have to pay to post the members’ discount card to those who pay late. 140 new members had joined in 2025, but lapsed members meant the net gain was fewer. 

Chairman, Jennie Kettlewell, explained progress made so far in 2026 and plans for improvements in the park: conservation work on the Old Dairy, though slower than hoped, started on site in March. Trustees had applied for £15k NCIL funding for the fence around the Walking Man statue, with start of work likely in autumn 2026. A ‘bee bank’ habitat for solitary bees would be constructed in Arboretum 1, to be funded by The Friends, who would also fund a path South West of the Orangery to correct erosion of grass and compaction of tree roots.  A busy calendar of events for 2026 includes Blue Badge tours, pop-up events in the Café Yard, bird walks, tree identification walks, the summer party and Christmas Concert.

Thanks were given to Gordon French, his daughter Alex, and many volunteers for another highly successful art exhibition, to the trustees for their dedication, to president Eric Ellul for his support, and to the members for their loyalty.

Photo: Eroded ground around the Walking Man statue. Jennie Kettlewell

Hazel circle under construction in 2025. RBKC Ecology Service

[Summer 2026]

Seasonal bird feeding 

By Alice Laughton, Head of RBKC’s Ecology Service

How birds are fed in Holland Park will be changing this year, following new advice from the RSPB.

The recommendations aim to reduce the spread of trichomonosis, a disease of garden birds. Caused by a single-celled protozoan parasite (Trichomonas gallinae), epidemics of trichomonosis were first seen in British finch species in 2005. The disease caused a 35% decline in Greenfinch numbers between 2006 and 2009 and has continued to cause large-scale mortality of finches in subsequent years. While Greenfinch and Chaffinch have been the species worst hit, many other species, including pigeons, House Sparrow and Goldfinch, are also susceptible. There is no known health threat to humans or other mammals, including dogs.

Trichomonosis is highly contagious and easily spread when birds gather. During summer and autumn, there’s a higher risk of the disease spreading, and busy bird feeders can become transmission hotspots. Luckily, this is the time of year when there is an abundance of natural food available to birds in the park, such as insects and seeds.

The RSPB is asking people not to put out bird feeders with seeds and nuts between 1st May and 31st October, to protect birds’ long-term health. The feeders in the Dutch Garden and Ecology Centre will therefore be removed for this period and reinstated in November.

The Parks and Ecology teams work together with idverde to ensure that Holland Park is managed to support wildlife. From adding mixed native hedging providing berries and nesting space, to creating new habitats to encourage more insects, ongoing biodiversity enhancements are helping bird populations across the park. 

Photo:  Robin finds its own food.  Tasso Leventis

[Summer 2026]

Summer party in the park

Monday, 13 July 2026, 6-8pm.

A popular fixture in our calendar is our summer party. The date is Mon. 13 July, the time is 6pm until 8pm and the place is the marquee at the east end of the Dutch Garden. Access is from the Dutch Garden only. We are most grateful to James Clutton, CEO of Opera Holland Park, for loaning us their smart marquee for the event. That means we will be protected from hot sun or sharp showers and whatever the weather decides to do. But let’s hope sunshine is on the menu.

We will celebrate summer with a refreshing Pimm’s fruit cup, tasty canapés and good company, all with the splendid view of the Dutch Garden summer planting.

This is the one event of our year that is only open to Friends and their immediate guests, but not the general public. Do come and celebrate with us! Tickets are £25 each and can be booked HERE on our website. The car park will be free after 6.30pm. 

Please do book your tickets early as we need to plan the catering.

Photo: Marquee in the Dutch Garden. Jennie Kettlewell

[Summer 2026]

AGM – come and hear about achievements and plans

 Wed 15 April 7.30 pm in The Orangery, Holland Park 

Please put the date in your diary and do come and join us. The formal part (voting to approve the 2025 accounts and voting for your trustees) is usually over quickly, and then we will have time to talk about future projects and to hear your comments, questions  and suggestions. The park continues to look impressive, in spite of significant challenges due to cuts in the Council’s budgets and process restrictions because of the major Cyber-attack on the Council’s website in December. As always, there is a great deal going on in the park and we are working closely with the parks teams to get projects agreed, paid for and implemented.

Our president, Eric Ellul, will chair the meeting and keep it all on track and on time.

Often, when it seems things are going well, people don’t feel they need to come to the AGM.  But please do come as these are challenging times and we would like you to be part of the discussion. We also need your votes at the meeting to ensure your committee remains in place to carry on the work. Come with your thoughtful questions and share your ideas. The trustees need your support and want to know that we are representing you.   

Members should please register to attend by contacting your chairman on jennie.kettlewell@thefriendsofhollandpark.org or calling 020 7243 0804.

We look forward to seeing lots of you on Wed 15 April.

Photo by Jennie Kettlewell.

[February 2026]

Holland Park’s original Japanese Garden

If you stand by the Ecology Centre and look east, you will see the ground cover has been cleared to reveal some old stones descending from the higher ground down towards where you are standing. What you are looking at is the original Japanese Garden. The water started from a spring near the current Holland Park Pond, and burbled through Sir Walter Cope’s Water Garden and rockery until it reached a pond roughly where today’s Kyoto Pond is sited. The Japanese Garden was created around 1900, starting at the bottom of the Water Garden, with a watercourse linking a series of small ponds and terminating at the entrance to the Adventure Playground. These gardens were a collaboration between the 5th Earl of Ilchester and his head gardener, Charles Dixon. 

Some eight years ago, then head gardener, Rob May, planted drifts of snowdrops to emulate the water flowing down through the Japanese Garden. Look carefully, and you can see those lovely flowers heralding the spring once again. It is now the plan to keep this area cleared so we can enjoy the historic garden.

Illustration by Mike Thrift.

[February 2026]

Sandra French

This is very hard to write. Sandra French, a very loyal and active trustee for The Friends, died on 19 December.  We had known she was very ill, but it still comes as a shock when someone close to us is no longer there.

Sandra was a true one-off.  She warned me when she became a trustee that she would ask awkward questions and come up with lots of ideas which we would then have to implement. She did all of that. Her ideas were relevant and well thought through so we did implement them.  One was the pop-event which we now hold regularly in the park. Another was the installation of a display cabinet for our merchandise in the park office.  The most recent was a colouring book, based on Holland Park, which is now being produced. Even when she was seriously ill in hospital, she emailed me with an idea for the park. And I can remember her asking challenging questions that showed she really thought about what we were discussing. She told us: “I’m Australian, so I’ll say it straight.” 

Beyond her great usefulness as a trustee was the fact she was a hugely positive person and she was such FUN to work with. When everything was going on at our annual art exhibition - the card machine wasn’t working, an artist had parked his car in the rose garden, we couldn’t borrow the park’s step ladder for hanging works and the green dots had gone missing – she just said “Okaaaaaaaay” and got on with sorting everything out.  

Sandra, together with husband Gordon and daughter Alex, was instrumental in delivering The Friends’ annual art exhibition. We are managing, with a small support team, to get this year’s exhibition organised to the usual high standard but we do miss her. She did far more than our art exhibition, cheerfully manning our pop-up stall having brought a big bunch of balloons with her, welcoming visitors at the reception desk at all of our events, helping organise food for our events. She played a big part in what The Friends do and in raising our profile in the local community and we will never forget that.

By Jennie Kettlewell

[February 2026]

Membership Discount Cards and Subscriptions 2026

Payment for 2026. If the order form included with your newsletter is green, it means that your members’ discount card will expire on 15 March and you will no longer be able to enjoy the discounts, or our informative newsletters. To continue to enjoy this benefit, please renew your membership now. All subscriptions were due on 1 January, except for those who paid after 1 September 2025. 

There are several ways to renew your membership. You can pay on our website www.thefriendsofhollandpark. Or you can send a cheque, payable to The Friends of Holland Park, to Margaret Rhodes, 25 Princedale Road, London W11 4NW. 

Standing order for 2027 onwards. You need to pay the 2026 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 an 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.

Rhoddy Wood

[February 2026]

Summer party in the park

Monday, 13 July 2026, 6-8pm in the marquee east of the Dutch Garden

Save the date in your diary and we will tell you more about it 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. In past years we’ve had both heavy rain and hot sun on the occasions of our party – the marquee provides shelter from both! This venue is kindly loaned to us for the evening by Opera Holland Park. 

[February 2026]

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.

Sun. 17 May. Blue Badge guided tour. Architectural decoration on Holland Park’s historic buildings.          F 2.30-4.00pm
Tues. 26 May.  Friends’ Pop-up stall in Holland Park’s Café Yard. F 10am-4pm

Sun. 14 June.   Blue Badge guided tour.  Holland House – how it survived two World wars.  Must book. £10. F 10.30 am–12noon 
Wed. 17 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. 27 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 HERE on our website, or by contacting Isabelle Beaumont on 07549 138 461/IBeaumont@gmail.com. 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. 

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.

Guided tours of Holland Park

Expert Blue Badge Guides will entertain you with fascinating stories about the long history of Holland Park and what went on there – scandals and all. 

Sat. 7 March.     2.30pm-4pm. History of Holland House and the people who lived there. Last opportunity to see the front of Holland House before the area is closed for the summer opera.

GuideLeila Sukiur  

Sat. 25 April.    10.30pm-12 noon. Holland House in two world wars – how it survived.

Guide Rowan Freeland. New tour!

Sun. 17 May.   2.30-4.00pm. The glorious architectural decoration on the Park’s historic buildings. Rare access to the tiled walkway above the café.

Guide Leila Sukiur. New tour!

£10.00 per person

Book a ticket HERE.

Meeting point will be on the ticket.

Any questions about these tours should be addressed to Isabelle Beaumont on 07549 138 461/IBeaumont@gmail.com. Unless otherwise instructed when you book, meet by The Friends’ notice board in the Café Yard.

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

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 2026]