Ladbroke Square Garden (Ladbroke Estate) *

Ladbroke Estate: Site on The National Heritage List for England, Parks & Gardens, for Register Entry see https://www.historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list. The Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England was established in 1984 and was commonly called English Heritage. In April 2015 it split into 2 separate entities, Historic England (HE), which continues to champion and protect the historic environment, and the English Heritage Trust, whose role is to look after the 400+ historic sites and monuments owned by the state. HE manages the National Heritage List for England (NHLE) that includes over 400,000 items ranging from prehistoric monuments to office blocks, battlefields and parks, which benefit from legal protection.

Ladbroke Square Garden is part of the Ladbroke Estate, laid out as a planned garden suburb with a coherent layout of concentric crescents and large communal gardens whose features were first suggested in a plan by architect and estate surveyor Thomas Allason in 1823. His scheme was later modified by others, including James Thomson, although he remained involved until his death in 1852. During the lull in building development, the land was leased for a time for a racecourse, the Hippodrome, built by John Whyte in 1837. The venture floundered, the course proving too heavy going, and it only operated from 1837-41. Building started in the 1840s; the outer concentric crescents date from the 1860s. After Allason's death, artist and designer Thomas Allom was responsible for the next phase of development.

Ladbroke Square is the largest garden on the estate, and is enclosed on the north by tall stucco mansions along Kensington Park Gardens, the eastern part designed by W J Drew in 1849-50 and the western part designed by Thomas Allom and built by David Ramsay in 1853-58. There is a break between the two terraces with an entrance and a pair of mid C19th cast iron gates with the coat of arms of Felix Ladbroke on shields in the centre of inscribed circles, opposite the gated entrance to South Stanley Garden (q.v.). The square is open on the other three sides, which are bounded by railings. The garden slopes from north to south and retains its original path layout including a broad walk running from west to east along the south side. In the garden are the remains of a circular fountain that was part of the original design for the garden, probably by Thomas Allason, which has been out of action since WWII. This is now a flowerbed surrounded by trees with ornamental cast iron urns on piers. Other features include a wooden summerhouse (one of a pair, the other demolished in the 1980s) and a gardener's cottage in the north east corner. The paths cross the garden to form three large lawns, backed by shrubberies, with a tennis court near the south-east corner. The mid C19th planting includes planes, limes, beech, evergreen and semi-evergreen oaks, hawthorns, and horse chestnuts, and has been supplemented by more recent planting of trees and flowering shrubs.