THIS week marks 26 years since Princess Diana passed away and poignant pictures reveal her peaceful final resting place at her childhood home.
The People’s Princess died in a car crash on August 31, 1997, and her grave is nestled on an island in the beautiful Oval Lake at Althorp House, Northampton.
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The grave understandably holds huge significance for her sons Prince William and Harry, along with thousands of fans who flock each year to pay their respects to the late royal.
Prince Harry even revealed in his memoir Spare that he took wife Meghan Markle to his mother’s final resting place in 2022, where they each had a private moment.
He wrote: “I was finally bringing the girl of my dreams home so she would meet my mother.”
The Prince left flowers before leaving Meghan by herself.
He wrote: “When I returned, she was on her knees with her eyes closed and her palms flat against the stone.”
Meghan told him she had asked his mother for “clarity” and “guidance”.
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Harry added that he’d had a similar bonding moment with William at the grave, but they’d clashed when he’d mentioned Meghan.
The Duke of Sussex detailed how he and Meghan had to row over to the island, as the grave site had been modified to get rid of the bridge that had connected it to the land.
He wrote: “The bridge had been removed, to give my mother privacy, to keep intruders away.”
Diana’s brother Earl Spencer revealed in 2017 that a number of cruel people had previously attempted to gain entry to the grave.
Earl Spencer told BBC Radio 4: “We’ve had four attempted break-ins towards her body in the last 20 years and I’m very glad we’ve seen all of them off.”
He added that “there are some odd people out there” but insisted that “keeping her right here is the safest place.”
CAN YOU VISIT PRINCESS DIANA’S GRAVE?
The public can visit Althorp House and Park from July 1 to August 31 – excluding certain dates that are listed on the website.
Opening hours are from noon until 5pm.
The estate is located just off the M1 and is about an hour-and-a-half from London.
The grave is inaccessible to the public as it is located on an island in the middle of the lake, but there is a separate memorial site nearby for guests to pay their respects.
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One theory is that the intruders wanted to take snaps of her private burial site to flog for a fortune, with Ingrid Seward, editor of Majesty Magazine, adding: “They would want to take photographs and sell them to European news organisations — the British press wouldn’t run them.”
Now the crystal clear lake protects the grave from prying trespassers.
Diana was originally supposed to be buried in the family’s vault at the local church in Great Brington.
But in 1998 Earl Spencer said the water would “act as a buffer against the interventions of the insane and ghoulish with the thick mud presenting a further line of defence.
“We all agreed that, with its beauty and tranquillity, this was the place for Diana to be.”
Diana grew up on the 13,000-acre Althorp estate, which now features 36 oak trees that were specially planted to represent each year of her life.
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Princess Diana’s family, the Spencers, have owned the Althorp Estate for over 500 years, with Diana calling the estate home before her marriage to Charles.
She grew up there with her siblings Lady Sarah McCorquodale, Lady Jane Fellowes and her brother Charles, the 9th Earl Spencer, and could often be found as a child tap dancing on the hall’s black and white marble floor.
Currently, the property is held by Earl Charles Spencer, who made headlines after his moving eulogy at Princess Diana’s 1997 funeral.
In his speech, the earl said: “Diana was the very essence of compassion, of duty, of style, of beauty.
“All over the world she was a symbol of selfless humanity.
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“All over the world, a standard bearer for the rights of the truly downtrodden, a very British girl who transcended nationality.
“Someone with a natural nobility who was classless and who proved in the last year that she needed no royal title to continue to generate her particular brand of magic.”
Diana’s funeral took place on Thursday September 6, 1997, and was aired on TV where it was viewed by as many as 30 million people worldwide.
Around 2,000 people attended the ceremony in Westminster Abbey, where her coffin was brought on a gun carriage from Kensington Palace.
As the coffin made the 1hr 47min journey from Kensington Palace to Westminster Abbey, distraught young Princes, William and Harry, walked behind their late mother alongside King Charles, Prince Philip and her brother Earl Charles Spencer.
A private burial took place later that day at Althorp Park on the Spencer family’s estate.
PRINCESS DIANA’S STRONG BOND WITH HER SONS
The Sun’s royal photographer Arthur Edwards said: “She had the magic touch with her boys.
“When Harry told her he wanted to be a soldier, she took him to an Army base where he dressed up in uniform and rode with the troops in an Army personnel carrier.
“I remember once at the polo in Windsor, William got too close to the rails. The nanny scolded him and he burst into tears.
“Diana saw this and ran over. She put him on her lap, rubbed his hair gently, said soft words and he stopped crying immediately.
“In August 1993 Diana took the boys to Disney World in Florida. Every kid wants to go. You could see the delight on the boys’ faces.”
In other royal news, we shared how Princess Diana’s brother plans to leave his Althorp estate to his son instead of his eldest child, daughter Lady Kitty Spencer.
Meanwhile, William and Harry looked after each other after Princess Diana’s death but have “become different people”, a royal source claims.