Controversial memorial to Princess Diana

Submitted by mstar on 6 February, 2006 - 13:23

The winning design for a £3 million memorial to Princess Diana was finally unveiled in July 2002 – to a storm of criticism.

The memorial was due to be built within a year. It was planned to consist of an 80 metre by 50 metre oval moat of shallow water beside the Serpentine lake in London’s Hyde Park. Water would pour in from the top of a hill at the Serpentine bridge, and a shallow hollow at the bottom would double as a paddling pool.

Finance minister Gordon Brown chaired a group that set up the Diana Princess Of Wales Memorial Fountain Committee in February 2001. 

In July, members agreed to build the water feature near the Serpentine.

The surprise choice by culture minister Tessa Jowell sparked an immediate outcry. The arts world criticised the design describing the memorial as bland and an embarrassment to Britain.

Sculptor Michael Daley, director of pressure group ArtWatch UK, compared it to a 'paddling pool'. He said: "This is a thin thing - a non-event. It will end up looking like a municipal paddling pool once children are running in it. Diana deserves a proper memorial. This is not it." 

Vivienne Parry worked with Diana on charity projects before the car crash which claimed her life in 1997.

She said: "Here was the most celebrated Briton in 25 years and this is something you’d trip over before you’d realise it is even there. It’s not a national monument — it’s a national nothing."

In August 2002, the mother of Diana Princess of Wales criticised the plans and claimed that she had not been consulted. 

Frances Shand Kydd said the water feature lacked "grandeur". Speaking to a French magazine, VSD, five years after Diana's death, Mrs Shand Kydd said she had learned about it only through newspapers and television.

"No one's ever taken the trouble to ask me my thoughts, either when Diana died or now." Mrs Shand Kydd said she was dismayed at the way both her daughter's life and now her memory had been appropriated by others. She said: "I ended up writing to the culture minister to remind her that I exist." 

The granite memorial fountain was opened by Queen Elizabeth on 6th July 2004. Prince Charles, Prince William, Prince Harry and Diana's brother Lord Spencer also attended. Diana's mother, Frances Shand Kydd, had died earlier in the year.

After the ceremony, Prince William joked with American Jennifer Woodson as he posed for a photograph with her nine-year-old daughter Elizabeth.

Jennifer exclaimed: “Now I have got a photo of the future King of England.