Ralph Hancock F.R.H.S. – Landscape Artist

Introduction

There’s a plaque on a wall in the roof gardens above what was once Derry & Toms on London’s Kensington High Street. It commemorates Trevor Bowen, Chairman of the Barkers Group and his Garden in the Sky, opened by the Earl of Athlone on 9 May 1938.

Spanish Garden, Kensington Roof Gardens, 2009One would be forgiven for thinking that it was Sir Trevor who had created the fabulous one-and-a-half acre roof garden. He did indeed have the inspiration to utilise the empty roof space and turn it into unique gardens, 100 feet above one of London’s more famous streets.

And it was also Bowen, having seen the Gardens of the Nations on the 11th floor of the Rockefeller Center in the early 1930s, who took the wise decision to employ the same landscape architect who had created the New York spectacular – Ralph Hancock.