Kensington Roof Gardens (formerly known as Derry and Toms Roof Gardens) is a roof garden covering 6,000 m#178; (1.5 acres) on top of the former Derry and Toms building on Kensington High Street, in central London, near Kensington Gardens. The gardens – the largest roof garden in Europe – are accessible from Derry Street, through a doorway marked quot;99 Kensington High Streetquot;. The gardens are open to the public unless pre-booked by a private party. The gardens adjoin a restaurant/night-club, and are situated 30 metres above street level (on the 6th floor of the building) with a panoramic view over west Londonbr/The gardens were laid out between 1936 and 1938 by Ralph Hancock, a landscape architect, on the instructions of Trevor Bowen (then vice-president of Barkers, the Kensington department store giant that owned the site and constructed the building in 1932). The building housed the department store Derry and Toms until 1973, and then Biba until 1975br/It is divided into three themed gardens -br/ * a formal Spanish garden, in a Moorish style, with fountains, vine-covered walkways and Chusan palmsbr/ * a Tudor style garden, with wisteria and rosesbr/ * an English woodland garden, with over 100 species of trees, a stream, and a garden pond that is the home to ducks and flamingos. Despite being on a rooftop, the trees were made the subject of tree preservation orders in 1976br/The Kensington Roof Gardens are barely visible from Kensington High Street.br/The gardens are not widely known because they are not a tourist attraction, but are run as part of the restaurant and nightclub. The Roof Gardens have been owned by Sir Richard Branson since 1981, and, with Necker Island and two properties in Africa, they form part of the Virgin quot;Limited Editionquot;