The house was largely destroyed by German firebombing during the Blitz in 1940 and today only the east wing and some ruins of the ground floor and south facade remain, along with various outbuildings and formal gardens.

[6] In November 1612 James I, following the death of his eldest son Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, spent the night at Cope Castle.

He was joined the following day by his son Prince Charles and daughter Princess Elizabeth, and her fiancé Frederick V, Elector Palatine.

The house was inherited by his daughter Isabel Cope, who in 1616, two years after her father's death, married Henry Rich, 1st Earl of Holland, whose property it then became.

[8] In 1649 Rich was beheaded for his Cavalier activities during the English Civil War and the house was then used as an army headquarters, being regularly visited by Oliver Cromwell.

After a short time spent at Hampton Court, he decided to find another home that was near enough to the capital to easily carry out royal business, but far enough away from the air of London not to threaten his health.

[12] Among his favoured venues for spending his leisure hours was the White Horse Inn, sited at the entrance of the back lane to Holland House.

[13] A century later Addison Avenue, Crescent, Gardens, Place, and Road on the § Ilchester Estate west of Holland Park were named after him.

[3][b] In 1746 he let the house and sixty-four acres of land to his parliamentary colleague Henry Fox – a leading Whig politician who would later be created Baron Holland – for 99 years or three lives.

[3] Henry Fox undertook a series of residential developments on the estate, using them as collateral to raise loans to finance the family's lifestyle, the expenses of which exceeded their income.

Lady Holland was circumspect of the beneficial prospects, writing to him in the same year that "remote posterity may benefit because for some generations it must be tightly mortgaged... none now alive will be much bettered by the undertaking.

As part of the terms of sale he allowed Lady Holland to continue living in the house, as well as granting her an annuity for life of £6,000.

[20] ...this strange house, which presents an odd mixture of luxury and constraint, of enjoyment both physical and intellectual, with an alloy of small désagréments....

Though everybody who goes there finds something to abuse or ridicule in the mistress of the house, or its ways, all continue to go; all like it more or less; and whenever, by the death of either, it shall come to an end, a vacuum will be made in society which nothing will supply.

It appears that the Earl was "in part motivated by the desire to preserve Holland House and its grounds from speculators", but had taken on financial burdens together with his inheritance which needed to be mitigated.

He immediately made plans to develop part of the land to the west of Holland House, which became Melbury Road, named after his Dorset seat.

During his ownership much of the land to its west was developed for housing as the Ilchester Estate, including Ilchester Place, completed in 1928,[24] Abbotsbury Road (now forming the western boundary of Holland Park), named after Abbotsbury Abbey in Dorset, acquired in 1543 by Sir Giles Strangways[25] at the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and several roads named after § Joseph Addison.

[28] The building remained a burned-out ruin until 1952, at which point the 6th Earl sold the house and fifty-two acres to London County Council (LCC) for £250,000.

The lower marbles of the fireplace were black, and the upper ones were Sienna; the capitals and bases of the columns and pilasters were gilt, and the groundwork from which all the glittering decoration rose was white.

[37] Later, numerous busts were displayed in niches in the gilt chamber, many by Joseph Nollekens, with subjects including the first Lord Holland, Prince William, Duke of Cumberland, Francis Russell, 5th Duke of Bedford, Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, Napoleon, the Italian poet Ludovico Ariosto, Henry IV of France, King George IV, and Charles James Fox.

While their exact original position is not known, a survey in 1694 showed them as being on the drive leading to the house's main entrance on its south side.

In 1848, the 4th Baron Holland moved them to the east side to be an entrance to the pleasure grounds, and on the south front created a terrace enclosed by a low balustrade.

[46] Following the house's § partial destruction in the Blitz, and the conversion in 1959 of the remains of the east wing into a youth hostel, the piers were returned to the south side.