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Holland House library after an air raid BB83_04456

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.
Holland 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.
In 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.
Holland 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.
Today, 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) "London Holland Park" 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

© Historic England Archive

RMS Aquitania BL26730_002

RMS AQUITANIA. Interior view towards the fireplace in the Palladium Lounge. The Aquitania was launched in 1913 as the third of the Cunard Line express ocean liners (after the Mauretania and Lusitania), and the last four-stack liner to be built. She could carry over 2000 passengers on Cunard's weekly transatlantic service. Photographed here by Bedford Lemere, in August 1923 probably during a stop-over and refit in Southampton

© Historic England

Coastal flooding 1953 EAW048271

JAYWICK SANDS, Essex. Aerial photograph taken on 2nd February 1953 showing flooded housing following the great East Coast storm surge which hit the coast overnight on 31st January. At Jaywick, near Clacton, the sea rose a metre in 15 minutes and 35 people drowned. In the photo are the submerged remains of Triumph Avenue, Crossley Avenue, Singer Avenue, Rover Avenue, Standard Avenue and Daimler Avenue. A hexagonal pillbox which is still at the end of Rover Avenue (at OS NGR TM140130) can be made out on the left hand side of the image. The road in the distance is Meadow Way. Aerofilms Collection (see Links)

© Historic England