Holland Park Living
Development of the Holland Estate
It was the Third Lord Holland who decided to cash in on the potential for development. He initiated the building of Addison Road in the mid-1820s.(See the previous page - Joseph Addison had lived and died at Holland House a century and a half earlier). But this coincided with a downturn in the property market, so building stopped almost as quickly as it had begun.
The Third Lord Holland died in 1840, leaving his wife with a life interest. She was extremely extravagant and wanted to sell land close to Holland House for development. But she died in 1845 and the Fourth Lord Holland inherited the estate outright. The housing market had begun to improve and he continued the former development plans.
The Fourth Lord Holland died in 1859. He had no children and the property passed to his widow. Building continued. The family luck with sewers continued. In the 1860s the railway company wanted to construct an “Addison Road” station. Lady Holland sold them the land, on condition that they constructed a new road - Russell Road - and a sewer beside it. This gave a jump-start to the development of that part of the estate.
Lady Holland’s lavish party-giving soon landed her in financial difficulties. To save herself, she sold the estate to a distant relative, Edward Fox-Strangways, the Fifth Earl of Ilchester. (Stephen Fox, the First Earl of Ilchester had been the elder brother of the first Lord Holland, so the estate remained in the family). The deal was that he paid her an annuity and allowed her to live in the house for the rest of her life.
When Lady Holland died in 1889, the Earl moved into Holland House himself and his successors also lived there. It was severely bombed in the Second World War. After the War it was substantially restored. The Earl of Ilchester continued the process of development on the estate, particularly at Melbury Road.
