The district was rural until the 19th century, and most of the area now referred to by the name Holland Park was formerly the grounds of a
Jacobean mansion called Cope Castle, which today is known as
Holland House. In the later decades of that century the owners of the house sold off the more outlying parts of its grounds for residential development, and the district which evolved took its name from the house. Large parts of Holland Park were constructed between 1860 and 1880 by master builders William and Francis Radford, who were contracted to build over 200 houses in the area. Notable 19th-century residential developments in the area include
the Royal Crescent and
Aubrey House. It also included some small areas around the fringes which had never been part of the grounds of Holland House, notably the Phillimore Estate (there are at least four roads with the word Phillimore in their name) and the
Campden Hill Square area. In the late 19th century, a number of notable artists and art collectors (including
Frederic Leighton,
P.R.A. and
Val Prinsep), known as the
Holland Park Circle, lived in the area, especially in
Melbury Road and
Holland Park Road.
Lansdowne House Lansdowne House, at Lansdowne Road. is a
Grade II listed eight-storey building which was originally constructed in 1902–04 by the Scottish architect William Flockhart, for the South African mining magnate Sir Edmund Davis. The building contained apartments and artists' workshops. Among the artists who had studios in the building in the early decades of the 20th century were
Charles Ricketts,
Charles Haslewood Shannon,
Glyn Philpot,
Vivian Forbes,
James Pryde, and
Frederick Cayley Robinson, who are commemorated on a
blue plaque on the building. The building underwent significant alterations. When, in 1957, the record producer
Denis Preston was looking for a property in which to set up a recording studio, his assistant engineer
Joe Meek found the premises, which had unusually high ceilings and a basement
squash court, suitable for conversion into a studio. Preston, Meek and (a year later) the engineer
Adrian Kerridge then established the studio, and made their first recordings there in 1958. The studio was London's first independent music recording studio. In 1962 an enlarged control room overlooking the studio floor was opened. Kerridge later became the studio's owner. The studios closed in 2006 and the building was subsequently converted into 13 self-contained apartments, while retaining a small recording studio. == Governance ==