The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Playground, next to her former Kensington Palace home, will reopen this summer with a new ‘full-scale’ wooden ship for children to play on
The finishing touches are being added to the centrepiece of a £3million revamp of a playground honouring the spirit of Princess Diana. The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Playground next to her former Kensington Palace home is currently closed, undergoing a huge transformation, and will reopen this summer with a new ‘full-scale’ wooden ship for children to play on.
The ship has been built in the foothills of the Bavarian Alps, and staff from Royal Parks, which manages the playground, have inspected the galleon in Germany before it makes its maiden voyage to London to its new home in Kensington Gardens. Royal Parks said £3million is being spent on upgrading the playground’s equipment, which has reached the end of its life.
The revamped play area will feature the 12-metre tall galleon, which includes a tunnel slide, two crows nests and a ramped entrance to the main deck for disabled access. The attraction will also feature a new treehouse, redesigned water play area and a new under-threes area. The new ship is partially built out of mountain larch wood from sustainably managed forests in the Bavarian Alps.
It is said the harsh alpine conditions result in extremely slow growth, making the timber stronger and naturally rot-resistant, negating the need for chemically treated wood.
The wooden structure was constructed in the German village of Frasdorf by Timberplay and its partners Richter Spielgerate, the same designers who produced the original Peter Pan-themed galleon for the playground’s opening in 2000.
Andy Williams, park manager for Kensington Gardens, said: “It really reaches to children’s imaginations, it lets them set free in a safe space.” He added the new playground was “in the spirit of Princess Diana, we’ve kept faithful to that”.
Paul Collings, managing director at Timberplay, said: “This new galleon and treehouse will reinforce the space as a benchmark for public play, delighting millions of children for years to come.”
While head of planning and projects at Richter Spielgerate, Peter Heuken, who also helped design the original galleon in 2000, said: “If equipment is not just rotting away, but it is run through and worn out by children, then this is the biggest compliment one can get. We are so much in love with the place and the park that I decided we absolutely want to help redo it.”
The Diana Memorial Playground first opened in June 2000, three years after her death on the site of a former playground opened in 1906 by Peter Pan author JM Barrie.
No royals attended the official opening almost 26 years ago and Diana’s close friend Rosa Monckton and her then five-year-old daughter Domenica, one of Diana’s godchildren, helped to open the site alongside former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who was Chancellor at the time. It has an average of one million visitors per year, making it the UK’s most visited playground, according to the Royal Parks.
