Princess Diana’s memorial got an update over the weekend.
The news was shared by Diana’s brother, Charles Earl Spencer, on Saturday, June 21. “Beautifully repainted this week – the memorial temple at Althorp. Wonderful to see it looking so fine for the summer,” Spencer wrote via Instagram, sharing a picture of the late Princess of Wale’s memorial at Althorp House in West Northamptonshire, England.
Princess Diana was buried on the grounds of her childhood home after her death on August 31, 1997. The actual site in the middle of Oval Lake Grave is not open to the public, but visiting the grounds is allowed. The memorial Charles shared can also be visited by the public.
Spencer previously shared a photo of the memorial via Instagram in November 2023.
Most of Diana’s family is buried at St. Mary the Virgin church in Great Brington, but Spencer made the decision to bury Diana at the family’s home due to safety concerns.
“It has been decided to bury Diana, Princess of Wales, in the grounds of Althorp Park, where her grave can be properly looked after by her family and visited in privacy by her sons,” he said in 1997.
Spencer also told the BBC, “There was such a whipped-up feeling of emotion everywhere that I was very worried about where we could safely bury her.”
In September 1997, Buckingham Palace denied reports the family had disagreed about Diana’s burial location. The Irish Times reported King Charles, then Prince Charles, told Queen Elizabeth’s private secretary, Sir Robert Fellowes, to “impale himself on his own flagstaff” after the latter insisted Diana’s body should be laid to rest in a private mortuary. Both Charles and then-Prime Minister Tony Blair insisted Diana’s body should be taken to Saint James’s Palace in the hours after her death.
“It is simply untrue to suggest that the queen ever opposed arrangements over where the princess’s body would lie,” a palace spokesman said at the time before describing the rumors as “a ragbag of nonsensical speculations.”
Spencer also denied the rumors. “To suggest that there were divisions between royal officials and me in the period after my sister’s death is so far from the truth as to be laughable. We were united in the aim of giving Diana a suitable funeral and all arrangements up to and including the service were agreed amicably,” he said in a statement published by the Irish Times.
