The Diana Memorial Fountain in Hyde Park – which has long been a popular place to cool down in hot weather – has been kept dry all summer due to a technical fault.
Royal Parks, the charity that maintains the central London park, apologised to visitors who found it without water “particularly given the prolonged high temperatures we’ve been experiencing”.
The fountain opened in 2004 in memory of Diana, Princess of Wales who died nearly seven years earlier.
The closure was initially triggered by a mechanical breakdown in the pump that draws water from the local borehole. The pump was fixed, but software used to control the system then failed, preventing the water supply from being restored.
The closure was publicly announced by Royal Parks on 1 July.
The charity’s spokesperson acknowledged that the fountain had “remained dry for longer than we hoped” while specialist teams worked to resolve the software issue.