The body of Diana, Princess of Wales, will return to her former home at Kensington Palace for the last time on Friday night. Buckingham Palace announced the new arrangements, which will extend the route of the funeral procession, as fears grew that an expected eight million mourners along the route through central London on Saturday would be crushed in the outpouring of grief over the princess's death.
The princess's body will be brought to Kensington Palace from the Chapel Royal at St James's Palace on Friday evening where it has lain at rest since Sunday evening. The Prime Minister, Mr Blair, welcomed the lengthening of the route saying he felt it reflected the will of the people to be part of something "of which Princess Diana would have been proud". Shortly before 10 a.m. on Saturday morning the princess's coffin will leave Kensington Palace, carried on a gun carriage bearing the royal standard and accompanied by riders of the King's Troop, and proceed along Kensington High Street to Hyde Park and from there it will join the main procession as planned at about 10.25 a.m. The gun carriage will be escorted by mounted police.
A Buckingham Palace spokesman said the new plan would allow the procession to pass Kensington Garden and Hyde Park where people could stand without risking public safety.
Up to 500,000 mourners will gather in Hyde Park where her funeral will be relayed on giant television screens. One minute's silence will be observed at 11.45 a.m. across Britain and far and wide after the funeral service at Westminster Abbey.
Buckingham Palace confirmed yesterday that Prince William, Prince Harry and their father would fly back to London from Balmoral on Friday to pay their respects at the princess's coffin.
When the funeral cortege leaves Westminster Abbey, it will begin a 78-mile journey to the Althorp estate in Northamptonshire where the princess's body will be interred at the Spencer family vault in St Mary the Virgin Church.
The funeral procession will pass along Constitution Hill to Hyde Park Corner and Park Lane, where the princess's friend, Dodi al-Fayed, owned an apartment, before it moves on to Marble Arch. After turning into Oxford Street, the procession will move towards St John's Wood in north-west London. The route will pass by the London Mosque, where Islamic prayers were said over the body of Dodi al-Fayed before his burial in Surrey last Sunday. Then the procession will travel along the North Circular Road to the M1 where it will move towards Northampton before leaving the M1 at Junction 15A for Althorp.