The Princess Diana Memorial Walkway

Diana died on 31 August, 1997. It was a tragic and brutally abrupt end to a fairytale that went dreadfully wrong; the story of a Princess who did NOT live happily ever after. Since her death in the gloomy echoing concrete of that infamous Paris underpass, many attempts have been made to carve out a fitting repository for her memory. The projects have foundered on the rocks of acrimonious controversy and wrangling in the fog of endless committee meetings.

Each year the anniversary of the passing of the People's Princess reminds us of this sorry history of official incompetance and apathy. And lest we forget her, a tacky new book on Diana's troubled life is published at about this time each year by some once trusted retainer now prepared to peddle his questionable memories and besmirch her name for a Judas purse of silver.

The Diana memorial committee's long overdue final choice for a public memorial in Hyde Park was finally unveiled five years after her death, only to be spurned by most commentators as banal and bereft of inspiration - a typical product of committee thinking perhaps?

There is however one London memorial to Diana that I like to visit with my Lady when we are in town, as we were recently. This is the Diana Memorial Walkway though the Royal Parks. It links the London she loved to Kensington Palace, where she first lived as a Princess. It ends for us at the adjacent Peter Pan themed playground.

It is a floral route that passes by the ornate black and gold Palace gates festooned with children's tributes to Diana on each anniversary of her death and culminates in the happy laughter of children at play in the immensely popular Diana Memorial Playground. This is surely the most fitting memorial to a Princess who cared and did so much for children in need.

THE Diana Memorial Walk leads us on a fascinating trail through 500 years of Royal history; from Tudor King Henry VIII,(1509-47), to Diana's son, Prince William of Wales. He is destined to be the 60th Monarch to occupy the throne of Alfred the Great, England's 'Charlemagne', the warrior King who united Saxon England against the Danish Vikings and founded the British Navy in the process during his rule from 871-899.

The route wanders in a figure-of-eight through seven miles of London's Royal Parks; flower bordered walkways in a green urban paradise teeming with bird and half-tame wildlife. Eighty plaques placed along the walkway lead us in a loop through St James's Park and Green Park, and another loop through Hyde Park and Kensington Palace Gardens and back to Hyde Park Corner.

The Walk encompasses many of London's historic landmarks. We see King Henry VIII's St James's Palace, once a medieval nuns' hospice for lepers and former London home of Prince Charles and sons William and Harry. Next door is Clarence House, the late Queen Mother's home, where Diana spent the night before her wedding in St. Paul's Cathedral. Prince Charles and his sons have recently moved in after its refurbishment and the ground floor rooms are open to the public for guided tours in the summer.

We pass Buckingham Palace, built by George IV and enlarged, enriched and embellished by Queen Victoria and succeeding monarchs. The State Rooms and Palace gardens are opened to the public during August and September each year while the Royal Family are in residence at Balmoral in the Scottish Highlands.

From Hyde Park Corner with its Constitution Arch, WWI memorials to the Fallen and the Apsley House museum to the Duke of Wellington, we pass Queen Victoria's grand Albert Memorial opposite the equally grand Albert Hall and reach the gates of Kensington Palace from whence Diana's funeral cortege emerged in solemn state for the procession through a silent London to Westminster Abbey.

Seven miles is a long walk. If, like mine, your limbs suffer from a surfeit of years, break your walk into two: stage 1, St James's and Green Park; stage 2, Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. Use Hyde Park Corner as your convenient start and end to both stages. You can take the London Underground or bus from here in all directions.

Stage 1 is visually and historically the most interesting. St James's Park is beautiful at any time of year, though it is perhaps at its most stunning in spring and early summer when some 500,000 spring bulbs bloom to complement the year-long succession of colourful border displays. Its lake teems with waterfowl; European and oriental ducks, geese and the Queen's swans, including descendants of the pair of black swans presented by the people of Australia after WWII.

The many Royal legacies of marbled grandeur and poignant memory in bronze that we see on our walk are softened throughout the year by a background of Spring parkland blossom, summer birdsong, the falling leaves of autumn and the winter mists.

My Lady and I much enjoyed stage 1 of this walk recently. We joined it at the Horse Guards building in Whitehall, walking past the two mounted soldiers of the Household Cavalry resplendent in their gleaming breastplates and plumed helms, and through the archway onto 'Horse Guards Parade'. The buildings facing onto the Parade were designed by William Kent, the foremost architect of his era. They have a Palladian grandeur that so distinguishes the 18th century reign of King George II.

This is London's centre for great occasions of pageantry and great moments of history. I have a faded photograph taken by my mother on her primitive box camera. It shows King George VI reviewing the ship's companies of HMS Achilles, Ajax and Exeter here on their return from the South Atlantic sinking of the German pocket battleship Graf Spee in the 1939 Battle of the River Plate. The Household Guards' Sovereign's Birthday Parade and Trooping the Colour takes place here each June, and the Remembrance Day March Past of Veterans each November.

Historic St James's Park faces us from Horse Guards Parade, its entrance guarded by an uncompromisingly stark WWI memorial to the officers and men of the Royal Household Regiments of Foot who died in the trenches of Flanders. Henry VIII created this park by draining a marsh and stocking the area with deer for his private stag-hunts. Charles I walked through the park from St James's Palace to his 1649 execution at the Mansion House in Whitehall. His son Charles II enjoyed walking his spaniels in the park here. It was claimed by the infamous Titus Oates to have been the proposed venue for the King's assassination "with a silver bullet" in the alleged Popish Plot of 1678.

The King's quiet walks had soon become something of a Royal Progress, with hopeful petitioners waylaying him with pleas, and wayward damsels desiring to catch the roving Royal eye prior to warming the Royal bed and person.

Crossing the road from the Parade, my Lady and I took the path bordering the park lake to the bridge in the centre, and paused to enjoy London's finest view of Buckingham Palace at the lake's head before crossing over and heading north to the impressive wrought iron park gates leading on to The Mall. At this time of year the park's chestnut trees are dropping ripe nuts which will keep the many parkland grey squirrels happy in the winter.

We crossed over the Mall into Marlborough Street and St James's Palace. Once a nun's hospice for leprous maidens, it was commandeered by Henry VIII and converted into a Royal hunting lodge. The Tudor turreted gatehouse of 1532 still remains. During her marriage, Princess Diana had her office and secretariat in this Palace. The accession of each new Monarch is heralded from here on the Sovereign's death.

On the right, hidden behind a wall, is Marlborough House, home of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra when, as Prince of Wales, Edward led fashionable London society through the 'Naughty 90s'. A poignantly beautiful bronze memorial to Alexandra stands facing the Palace. It is reminiscent of a Pieta, and is an eloquent testament to the love that the people of the then British Empire had for the great-grandmother of Queen Elizabeth.

Returning to The Mall the Diana plaques lead us west to Stable Yard Road, with its guarded entrance to Clarence House. During her long residence here The Queen Mother traditionally appeared outside the entrance each year on her birthday to greet her thousands of wellwishers. Princess Diana spent her wedding eve at Clarence House, watching the spectacular celebration firework display over Buckingham Palace with the Queen Mother from its windows.

We continued our walk on to Green Park and turned north into Queen's Walk towards Piccadilly. Here is London's finest row of Royal and noble mansions facing onto the Park. They include Lancaster House, built 1839 by Benjamin Wyatt for the Duke of York; Lord Ellesmere's Bridgewater House, built in 1849 by Houses of Parliament architect Sir Charles Barry. Here, also, stands Spencer House, the 1765 Palladian masterpiece built by John Vardy for Diana's forebear, the First Earl Spencer; surely one of the most beautiful buildings in London.

At the top of Queen's Walk, facing into Piccadilly, stands the Belle Epoque Ritz Hotel, patronised by Royalty and nobility since it opened in 1906 - and by my Lady and me for afternoon tea in the hotel's renowned Palm Court that afternoon!

If you start your walk in the morning, the Ritz is perhaps a convenient and elegant venue place to pause for lunch,(tel: 020 7493 8181 for bookings), as is Le Caprice Restaurant,(tel: 020 7629 2239), just around the corner from the side entrance of the Ritz in Arlington Street. Le Caprice has been a favoured Royal and show business luncheon rendezvous for 50 years. Diana was a frequent visitor.

After our delightful afternoon tea at the Ritz,( I recommend the 3.30 pm sitting rather than the 5.30 pm sitting, unless you intend to go straight from drinking Darjeeling tea to sipping cocktails), my Lady and I continued down Piccadilly to Hyde Park Corner, with its dramatic Ionic Screen by Decimus Burton (1825).

In the 18th century, when the famous Exeter Fly stage coach was the fastest transport to the West Country, London ended at this spot. Setting out on its weekly flight from the city at 5 o'clock in the morning from the Bull and Gate coaching inn at Aldersgate, The Exeter Fly jolted its way down a then rutted Piccadilly until it reached what is now Apsley House. The coachman alighted for a drink there at an inn called Hercules' Pillars which stood where Apsley House now stands. The travellers in the Exeter Fly of 1773 would have noticed the guard at the inn's doorway ostentatiously getting his blunderbuss under control and, fearfully putting themselves into a posture of defence, felt for their own pistols. For although the Knighstbridge that we now associate with Harvey Nichols and Harrods, smart fashion boutiques and expensive restaurants is but a short step away, it was then a place of sometimes impassable muddy bogs - and highwaymen intent on relieving stranded passengers of their purses.

Facing Burton's Screen, erected when the railway had displaced the stage coach and a new gentility had reached Knightsbridge, is his Victory Arch and the 5 star Lanesborough Hotel, converted from the old St. George's Hospital built in the last days of the reign of George IV.

The arch was commissioned by George IV to stand before Buckingham Palace as a celebration of Britain's victory over Napoleon at Waterloo. Before it was later moved to its present position at Hyde Park Corner, it was topped by a colossal equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington, the emperor's victor. The statue was later removed to a more appropriately military venue at Aldershot the garrison town, and the arch moved to its present position. A chariot-born winged Angel put in its place in 1912 as a memorial to King Edward VII. The arch is now dramatically lit at night, the angel standing triumphant against the London sky.

Next to the Ionic Screen is the Duke of Wellington's Apsley House, its 1829 exterior another fine example of the Benjamin Wyatt's work. Apsley House was the Iron Duke's London residence and known as No 1 London. It is a treasure trove of fine china and silver donated to him by the thankful Royals of Europe, whose thrones he saved from Napoleon. If you have any energy left after completing the first part of the Diana Memorial Walk, pay a visit to Apsley House or to the Arch. Both are now museums.

Hyde Park Corner is an admirable place to end the first stage of the Diana Memorial Walk and pause to refresh yourself. Backing onto the Lanesborough in Wilton Row is The Grenadier, a noted Belgravia 'watering hole' with close associations to the Duke of Wellington. Built in the 1830s alongside the then Foot Guards barracks, it was once a notorious gambling haunt and is said to be haunted by a soldier who was beaten to death after being caught cheating at cards there.In earlier years, when I lived nearby, it was my favourite venue for a Sunday morning drink, (its Bloody Mary cocktails are famed for their pick-me-up qualities). On this occasion my Lady and I repaired to its intimate surroundings, which have been little changed in 170 years, to rest our feet and enjoy a glass of chilled white wine before returning to our hotel.

The second section of the designated Diana Memorial Walk begins at Burton's Ionic Screen. It loops along the south side of Hyde Park to Kensington Gardens, taking us up past Kensington Palace and the Diana Memorial Playground to to the remarkably peaceful classical temple and fountains of the Italian Gardens at the head of the Serpentine, before returning along the lake's north side to Hyde Park Corner.

I prefer to join this second stage of the Diana walk at Alexandra Gate, (named after King Edward VII's beautiful Danish Queen). It leads into the park from Exhibition Road with its complex of stately buildings inspired by Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's beloved Prince Consort, and his Great Exhibition of 1851.

The Queen's flamboyant Albert Memorial, designed by Sir Gilbert Scott,(1872), stands on the site of the Great Exhibition and dominates the park here. Scott's creation which won him his knighthood from a mourning Queen, is best described by Alastair Service, London's chronicler of Royal architecture. "It is a realisation on a monumental architectural scale of the type of medieval shrine of metal and jewels used to contain the relics of saints". Writing nearly a century earlier in 1895, a critic described it as: "Noble in its plan and dimensions, built of varied and valuable material, and enriched with appropriate statuary, it is at once an adornment to the great city, and a national memento of a good and wise man". Both critiques fail to mention the heady whiff of self-righteous Victorian imperialism that surrounds this bronze gilt statue and its canopy. You will find a close inspection is rewarding. I gain endless pleasure from its powerful, self-confident, (though now deemed politically incorrect), imperial and colonial symbolism.

Seated in his memorial and holding a copy of the exhibition catalogue in his hands, Albert faces the classically inspired Royal Albert Hall designed by Captain Fowke, (1867), to emulate the Roman Pantheon. It is now venue for London's major musical events including the annual cycle of Henry Wood Promenade Concerts.

Walk from here through the beautifully kept and always flower-bedecked Kensington Gardens to Kensington Palace, created for Dutch William III by Sir Christopher Wren and his disciple, Nicholas Hawksmoor, between 1689 and 1702. Queen Victoria lived here with her controversial mother, the Duchess of Kent, until she ascended the Throne in 1837. This is still a working Royal residential palace, (Princess Margaret lived here and some members of the Royal Family have apartments here),but the State Rooms are open to the public. The ever-changing exhibition of Royal State robes is well worth seeing, as is the sunken water garden and the old Orangery, where you can pause for a snack.

Charles and Diana lived in the Palace in the early years of their marriage, and Diana had her post-divorce apartment here. Each year Diana is remembered at the South facing gates during the anniversary week between her death and funeral by a crowd of some hundreds who bring their floral tributes and children's mementos to garland the gates.

It is but a short walk from the Palace Gates to Diana's Memorial Playground built on an original playground donated by J.M.Barrie, the author of Peter Pan. You will find your way to it simply by walking in the direction of the joyful shouts of children at play there. George Frampton's richly patinated bronze of Barrie's fictional child who never grew up it nearby. It was placed there in 1912 and has been one of London's best loved and most visited monuments ever since.

I have now retired to the Isle of Wight. I invite you to share my weekly jottings at Rosemary Lane, my weekly chronicle of the changing seasons and unhurried village life at my country cottage on Wight, my island idyll.

Related Links
Tea at the Ritz
The classic English Afternoon Tea served to ladies and gentlemen in the Ritz Hotel's elegant Palm Court.

Apsley House
Excellent informative official website for The Duke of Wellington's London residence with photos.

The Lanesborough
Official site of the Lanesborough Hotel with interesting photos of Hyde Park Corner.

The Grenadier Pub
Excellent description and directions to this charming pub.

Peter Pan
Excellent description of London's Peter Pan and Eros monuments by Peyton Skipwith of the Fine Art Scociety, Bond Street.

Photos. Horse Guards Parade, Diana tributes ©2002 PA Photos
Constitution Arch. ©2001 English Heritage.
Buckingham Palace photograph ©1999 M.Cerny.