Which 20th-century London department store was famous for its roof garden?

In 1862 Joseph Toms, who ran a small drapery shop on Kensington High Street, joined forces with his brother-in-law, Charles Derry, to set up Derry & Toms, a company that supplied goods to the upper class of Kensington.

Derry and Toms new Art Deco department store was opened in 1933. Its roof gardens were laid out between 1936 and 1938 by Ralph Hancock, a landscape architect who had just created the "Gardens of the Nations" on the 11th floor of the RCA Building in New York. They cost £25,000 to create and visitors were charged 1 shilling to enter. Money raised was donated to local hospitals and £120,000 was raised during the next 30 years.

Derry & Toms continued to operate until 1973, and then Biba took over the premises. In 1978, the garden's Art Deco tea pavilion was redeveloped into a nightclub, in 1981 Virgin Limited Edition bought the lease to the roof garden and the pavilion, and in 2001 Virgin turned the pavilion into the Babylon restaurant.

The more than 100 trees in the garden were given a tree preservation order by Kensington & Chelsea council in 1976, the roof garden buildings were Grade II* listed by English Heritage in 1981 as part of a listing given to the whole building, and the garden itself was given a Grade II listing in 1998 within the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.

Virgin ceased its operation of the Roof Gardens in January 2018 and the site is currently closed to the public. It is unknown when it will reopen.