Fountain

We'd give odds that most Londoners have never heard of Princes Circus but it's there on the map, at the junction of Shaftesbury Avenue, St Giles High Street and High Holborn. When we first spotted this sturdy fountain it was looking rather sorry for itself, cowering on the south-east corner of Shaftesbury Avenue and New Oxford Street, a junction which was being refurbished. When we went back to photograph it, it had vanished, only to be rediscovered some weeks later in its new home where it is fenced in, perhaps to stop it running off again?

December 2023: John Cole wrote to us: "The Princes Circus Drinking Fountain is meant to have been reinstated as part of Camden’s West End Project. The project is now finished but where is the fountain?" Indeed, Google Street View shows that the fountain disappeared sometime between May and July 2021.  Apparently the return of the fountain is being held up because Camden (responsible for the structure) want the requirement for it to dispense water removed from the planning consent. Buying water in single-use plastic bottles makes so much more sense.