Trailing a hand in the Diana Memorial Fountain.
The Diana Memorial Fountain (which is actually in Hyde Park, unlike the Diana Memorial Playground which is about twenty minutes walk away in Kensington Gardens) sounds fairly dull. It’s basically just an ‘O’-shaped, fairly shallow, stone river. With permanently soggy grass in the middle, for which you will need a properly waterproof picnic rug or raincoats you can sit on.
But for children, it is the best waterplay they have ever seen. It has shallow bits, deep bits, fast bits, slow bits, bumpy bits, smooth bits. They can go round and round. And round. And then round the other way. Littlies (below about three) will probably need an adult helping hand, as it can be a bit slippery and the current in the deep bits is fairly strong if you’re small. Older children will probably have more fun if they go with a friend. You will most definitely need clothes for getting wet in (or a swim suit / UV suit) and (for the not yet potty trained) a swim nappy.
Paddling in the Diana Memorial Fountain.
Theoretically they aren’t meant to swim in it, but nobody seems to mind the odd sitting down ‘accidentally on purpose’. Anything too boisterous (like bringing floating toys or water pistols) is stopped pretty quickly by people in high vis jackets who work for the Royal Parks.
It does get fairly busy on a nice day in the school holidays, but there’s quite a lot of space around it as well as in the middle of the ‘O’, so its never absolutely packed and horrible. Its an ideal place to take a picnic (possibly after a morning at the South Kensington museums, which are about 15 minutes walk away). There’s a cafe (and toilets) a few minutes walk along the lake, if you can tear your children away from the fountain. The fountain is open from 10am, closing at 4pm in winter and as late as 8pm from April to August, and it can shut in very cold weather.
Wading in the Diana Memorial Fountain.
The Diana Memorial Playground reopened in August 2026 after a £3 million rebuild. It’s fenced off, with a new wooden galleon on a sandy beach (crow’s nests, a tunnel slide and a play kitchen below deck), a treehouse with three towers and another slide, a water play area with a giant crocodile, and an area for younger children with little wooden houses, play ships and a big sandpit. Only adults with children aged 12 or under are let in, and it’s open from 10am until 3.45pm in winter and 7.45pm in summer (last entry 15 minutes before closing). If it’s not busy, it’s great. In school holidays, it gets so packed that it can be hard to find anywhere to put your picnic rug / buggy (stroller) / children. There is a limit on how many people they let in, and there’s quite often a queue waiting outside (‘one in, one out’ policy once they hit the limit), so best to get there early if you can. There are picnic tables just outside. Its major advantages (compared to the Diana Memorial Fountain) are that it has a high fence around it so small children can’t escape, and it has plenty to do even if its too cold for water play. Less good are the crowds, the lack of shady places to sit and the layout, which makes it very hard to keep track of your kids.
The old pirate ship in the Diana Memorial Playground. A new galleon replaced it in 2026.
The sandpit, little houses and water play are excellent for small children. The galleon and the treehouse are great for older kids who are confident climbers and explorers. The problem is that if you have one of each, its tough to keep them both happy unless the older one is unworried by not knowing where you are and having to search around all the different bits of the playground to find you. I would say that its definitely a two-adult place to visit if you have more than one child, as then you can have one with the littlies and another acting as a ‘home base’ for older kids who need a drink / snack / someone to help because they’ve grazed their knee. Ideally you would also have a third adult to go and get coffee, but I’ve never managed that.
Getting there
This is slightly awkward, as most of the tube stations aren’t that close (about 20 minutes from High Street Kensington for the playground, about 20 minutes from South Kensington for the fountain). For the playground, Queensway station (Central line) is much nearer, just a few minutes’ walk away. Neither High Street Kensington nor South Kensington has a lift (elevator), so you have to carry buggies (strollers) up the steps - Londoners will usually help if asked, but its still a pain. If you have a buggy (stroller), Knightsbridge station is step-free to the platform (ask staff for a ramp onto the train), and it’s about 15 minutes’ walk from the fountain.
Even if your buggy-user is usually a decent walker, the distances are a bit too far to leave the buggy (stroller) at home, especially on the way back when your child is really tired. This is one trip on which I quite often use a sling to carry Anna on my back, but that’s tricky if you also want to carry a picnic. Even older kids might need some encouragement (or a scooter, if you have one) on the way home.
It’s worth seeing if you can find a bus that goes where you want, as the bus stops are much closer to the fountain - use TfL’s Journey Planner. If you have a smartphone, the Citymapper app is good at telling you where you are and which bus to get on. And, crucially, when to get off again.
Additional notes:
These parks do have other things in them, apart from playgrounds!
Most notably there’s the Serpentine lake in Hyde Park, which is available for both swimming (at the Lido, at weekends from mid-May and every day from June to mid-September) and boating (pedalos, some of them electric, and rowing boats). It’s a bit odd swimming in the Serpentine as you’re sharing the water with the the ducks! I’m not convinced that either the ducks or the fish get out of the water to go to the toilet…
