Princess Diana Memorial Fountain

Opposite the Kensington Gardens’ Serpentine Gallery and across West Carriage Drive is this memorial fountain dedicated to the late Princess of Wales in 2004. Envisaged by the designer Kathryn Gustafson as a ‘moat without a castle’ and draped ‘like a necklace’ around the southwestern edge of Hyde Park near the Serpentine Bridge, this circular double stream initially invited visitors, especially children, to wade in the fountain. But when several people slipped on the smooth granite basin and injured themselves, a gravel path was built around it. Visitors still flock here to be mesmerised by the water’s flow both left and right from the fountain’s highest point, or to sun themselves around it in fine weather, but guards prevent them jumping into the water.