The Roof Gardens (formerly known as Derry and Toms Roof Gardens and Kensington Roof Gardens) is a roof garden covering 6,000 m² (1.5 acres) on top of the former Derry and Toms building on Kensington High Street, in central London, in The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. They have for a long time been the largest roof garden in Europe, but was surpassed by the roof garden on the shopping mall Emporia in 2012. Facilities include a restaurant and club.
The gardens are not visible from Kensington High Street; however, the property can be identified by the Virgin flags flying from the top of the building. The gardens are open to the public unless pre-booked by a private party. They are accessible from Derry Street, through a doorway marked "99 Kensington High Street". The nearest tube station is High Street Kensington.
Read more about Kensington Roof Gardens: History, The Gardens, Restaurant and Clubhouse, The Roof Gardens in Fiction, Image Gallery
Famous quotes containing the words kensington, roof and/or gardens:
“Like a skein of loose silk blown against a wall
She walks by the railing of a path in Kensington Gardens,
And she is dying piecemeal
of a sort of emotional anemia.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)
“The roof of England fell
Great Paris tolled her bell
And China staunched her milk and wept for bread”
—Karl Shapiro (b. 1913)
“If I could put my woods in song,
And tell what’s there enjoyed,
All men would to my gardens throng,
And leave the cities void.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)