The Earls Court Exhibition pleasure gardens, an international venue, was begun by John Robinson Whitley, visited by Queen Victoria in her Jubilee year, and subsequently frequented by the Royal Household. The royal connection continued through the decades and Diana, Princess of Wales opened the barrel-shaped Earls Court II hall, which in 1991 straddled the boundary between Hammersmith and Fulham and Kensington and Chelsea; but after a confidential decision taken by the two boroughs in 2008, demolition began in 2015. The entire venue was closed down in 2014. Other notable structures on the site were the giant Ferris wheel (1895-1907) and the 6,000 seat "Empress Hall" (1894), built for impresario Imre Kiralfy, both long gone.