Lightship Tenders and Royal Yachts: A Weekend in Leith
If only one could take a ferry to Leith now days. Aberdeen Maritime Museum
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If there’s on thing that I love as much as I love watercraft//the ocean, museums, travel, and history, it’s hotels (and dogs, but that’s not the point). My mum has worked in them for most of my life and I have stayed at anything from hostels with up to 12-15 people in a dorm room, to huge rooms at a Ritz-Carlton and, suites, with butler service, at a St. Regis. If I could be Eloise and live at a hotel I would 100% take someone up on that, especially if it was the Fingal Edinburgh.
I wanted to spend at least a couple of days in Edinburgh so I took the opportunity to book a room at the newly opened (January 2019) Fingal Edinburgh, a 23-room luxury boutique hotel in a former Northern Light house Board (NLB) Lighthouse Tender, and owned by the Royal Britannia Trust. The Trust are the owners and steward of the HMY Britannia, the royal yacht that served the British Royal Family for 44 years before it was decommissioned and opened as a museum ship in 1998. The Trust also owns 3 watercraft previous owned by the Windsor family. Including a racing yacht Bloodhound, which sails out of Oban during the month of August.
The Basics
Deciding to use this as a “treat yo’self” stay, and seeing that tickets (2) to the HMY Britannia were included, I booked a Classic Cabin with the “Aboard Fingal” rate. The rate is still available on the website, but the price has gone up since May. Also included was a Full Scottish Breakfast, Wi-Fi, a bottle of Moët & Chandon, and a gift set of Noble Isle amenities. To get to Edinburgh, I got on a morning ScotRail train from Aberdeen (about 2.5 hours) for around £30; for my return, I found a first class ticket from Edinburgh on the daily LNER London-Aberdeen train was £29.40 and left around 8pm (price similar today). Not only was that cheaper than ScotRail and gave me more time in town, it came with lounge access so I could relax after dinner with tea//coffee//snacks without having to entertain myself in an otherwise shuttered Waverley Station.
The Vessels:
M/V Fingal
Fingal Edinburgh//formerly M/V Fingal
The Fingal was built in 1963 in Glasgow for the Northern Lighthouse Board and was based in Oban for 30 years before being relocated to Stromness on the Orkney Islands for the last 6 years of its service, until its decommissioning in 2000. The ship was purchased by the Royal Britannia Trust for a floating hotel and underwent extensive renovations from 2014-2019. The original ship included rooms and common areas designed for men who would be at sea for some time and would have to carry supplies and equipment for lighthouses and navigational aids under their stewardship. Today, the interior has been modified to accommodate the 23 rooms and suites, an event space, restaurant, offices, and meeting room. The ship measures 239 ft. long (length over all), 40.35 ft wide (breadth//beam), and draws 13 feet. Fingal is now moored at the Alexandra Dock just over 3 miles from the headquarters of the Northern Lighthouse Board on George Street.
HMY Britannia
HMY Britannia upon starting the audio tour. I love the custom blue paint.
The Britannia was built in Glasgow between 1952-1953, and commissioned into the Royal Navy in 1954. Between 1954 and 1997 the Britannia sailed to over 135 countries for everything from state visits to royal honeymoons. Parts of the ship have been left as they were upon decommission but others have been changed to accommodate the needs of a museum, like the Royal Deck Tea Room. Britannia is over 412 feet long, and almost 60 feet wide. During royal sailings, a complement of 240 Royal Navy personnel would be onboard in addition to the Family, guests, and staff. Work to create a museum began in 1998 when it was permanently moved to the Ocean Terminal in Leith.
I was skeptical… I didn’t need to be!
Having worked in hotels and museums… I was a little concerned when I found out that a cultural heritage organization was making a foray into the world of luxury hotels. They both require great hospitality skills but, taking care of guests in a hotel is still different than in a museum and require different missions and visions. So far that seems to have been worked out. Initially, I had card issues (my card really has a distaste for the UK!), but it was all very attentively handled by that staff through emails and phone calls before I checked in. When I checked in I was really impressed by the level of service—seriously, some of the best across-the-board customer service I have seen at a hotel anywhere—and how enthusiastic everyone was to be there, and have a chat. Some of the crew were showing interested people (not necessarily guests) around the ship with same great enthusiasm. I was already in love.
ALL THE DETAILS
One of the most noticeable things aboard Fingal is the dedication to detail in every part of the ship. The trident logo has been embossed onto the key fob, the handles to the armoires, and even the ice cube in my whisky. The 23 rooms are not given a room number, but rather named after one of the lighthouses that dot the vast coast of Scotland and the Isle of Manx. I stayed in Cape Wrath. The level of detail also extends, too, to the lighthouses—the suede headboards are embroidered with the light’s location on a nautical chart, and the framed photographs are of the specific lighthouse. For those interested in more information, each room is also equipped with a copy of Ian Cowe’s Scottish and Manx Lighthouses: A Photographic Journey in the Footsteps of the Stevensons. If the Stevenson name rings a bell, it’s because the family of Treasure Island author, Robert Louis Stevenson, was responsible for the engineering and construction of the same lighthouses memorialized onboard Fingal. Because it’s Scotland, and Fingal is a Scottish ship through and through, each room is outfitted with custom tartan accessories created by Leith-based designer Araminta Campbell. Believe me when I say I really wanted to take one of the pillows home. The colors are lovely.
I still have a weird love for this bathroom.
Food and Booze
As of writing the Lighthouse Bar, the onboard bar and restaurant, has a full menu of nautically-inspired alcoholic beverages that I can’t say I ordered when I was there for dinner the night of my stay. I stayed with whisky and sparkling water (separately!). As the hotel’s first year rolls on, I see new additions to the menu that I would have loved to try. Guess I have to go back! The food onboard is incredibly fresh, simple, and well-prepared. Upon check-in, the front desk made a reservation at the restaurant for me which, as it turns out, wasn’t necessary, as it ended up just being me and one couple on a drinks date. But the attentiveness of the front desk staff again shows the level of service onboard. Breakfast was awesome.
From Lighthouse Tender to Royal Yacht
The Royal Yacht Britannia
Ocean Terminal, Leith
National Historic Fleet, National Register of Historic Vessels
Royal Entrance onto Britannia
The next morning I used the ticket included in my room package to visit the HMY Britannia, the royal yacht at served the British Royal Family for 44 years, until 1997. My stay//visit came at the end of Yotties Week—the annual reunion of Royal Yachtsman, the group of the Royal Navy chosen to work aboard Britiannia—where they return to share memories and help out on board. Unfortunately, my timing was off and I arrived after the last had departed. During Yotties Week it is common to see the former Yachtsmen working on deck or chatting with the guests—in August, they are crew responsible for sailing the Bloodhound around the western coast of Scotland. Despite my poor timing, I had a wonderful time visiting the Britannia—it was a really well-done and a surprisingly cozy? attraction. As much as they spend time interpreting the ship’s history with the Royal Family, and the number of visiting dignitaries, state dinners, etc., they also spend remembering the large crew of Royal Yachtsmen, and occasionally Royal Marines, that lived and worked on board in service of their country. The coziness is a result of the Officer’s and Seaman’s Common Rooms being open for guests to sit and relax, listen//catch up on their comprehensive audio tour (included in the ticket), or while away a few minutes people watching. On the Royal Deck (once reserved for the use of the Royal Family and their apartments) is the Royal Deck Tea Room, which is open for lunch and tea. The onboard kitchen used for the royal family is now used to fulfill the orders of the the ship’s thousands of guests a year. The menu is light but has a pretty large offering of teas//coffee and alcoholic beverages for a museum.
Reviving Old Spaces
One of coolest parts of the Britannia is they way the Trust uses spaces for their original purpose. The onboard kitchen, as I said before, is used for the Royal Deck Tea Room; the onboard laundry is used to wash linens; the State Dining Room is available for private events; the crew’s sundry shop (NAAFI) below decks is still used to sell a variety of goods, and their own fudge made onboard. The fudge looked really good, but I passed on it as I wasn’t in the mood to buy fudge. I suppose I was afraid of getting bored on the train back to Aberdeen and eating too many.
View into the main kitchen at the beginning of lunch service.
Downsides
-Getting to Alexandra Dock, where the Fingal is moored, was a bit of a group project between the cab driver and me. He was relatively new to the job but, between my phone and his general knowledge of Leith, we made it. He was friendly so it made the whole experience into a comedy sketch.
-Cost. Not the cheapest hotel in town– I could have stayed at The Glasshouse or other Marriott product for a much more affordable rate but I absolutely got what I paid for.
Upsides
-The service! The service onboard Fingal is amazing. The staff were very attentive, almost too attentive (for me). Disclaimer: I’m a pretty shy person and will usually opt to do something myself, so even the staff making dinner reservations and sourcing a newspaper can feel like I’m acting too entitled. But I survived. I took it as the Royal Treatment. Jackie in the Reservations office was especially helpful and a very awesome ambassador for the ship.
-Moët Imperial in my room. Take that Cunard.
-A lovely note also in my room. I was an average guest but I had a handwritten note waiting for me in my room welcoming me aboard.
-ART DECO! I love solid Art Deco vibes on ships.
-The beds are very, very comfortable.
-PRIMARY.SOURCE.DOCUMENTS. After my visit to the Britannia, the Fingal’s staff directed me towards Fingal’s bridge, which is now a meeting space, where there were registers, logbooks, and other documents related to Fingal and its sister NLB ships. That was definitely the first time I’ve ever able to sit in a room in a hotel and sift through books from the original construction. I was really glad I booked the late train home so I could spend a couple of hours reading the Ship Specifications book for Ship No. 140—later christened the M/V Fingal. The “Design, Material and Workmanship” specifications for the original ship still ring true in it’s life as a luxury hotel: “The material and workmanship throughout to be of the very best quality and finish, and the greatest care to be exercised to provide a vessel fitted and adapted in all respects for the special service of the Commissioners [NLB].”
Wandering at 55°59’N, 3°10’W
A sign not often seen in museums!
Before I left the Ocean Terminal Shopping Centre, I stopped by the Scottish Design Exchange (now a favorite!) and The Little Shop of Memory (a store-front museum that encourages you to pick up the objects and read their mountains of articles and books run by the Living Memory Association) and got to see how much of Leith’s history and essence is, like Aberdeen’s, shaped by the sea. One piece of Leith-themed merchandise was a greeting card commemorating the Leith-built SS Sirius, that in 1838 was the first steamship to make a transatlantic crossing with passengers, beating out the the Great Western by a matter of hours. Over at The Little Shop of Memory, I found a photocopied book, Leith, Port of Edinburgh, A Short History, which I read through on the couch in the back.
Made in Leith//Scottish Design Exchange.
Can’t Wait to go Back!
Even if I don’t stay onboard (but I hope I will), I will at least go back to Fingal for a drink or two. It’s well worth a visit, as are all the offerings at the Ocean Terminal. For anyone with even a tiny bit of interest in harbor towns must spend some time in Leith on a visit to Edinburgh.
Trip bonus: Aberdeen//Edinburgh transits require crossing the Forth Bridge, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Products Mentioned:
Additional Sources:
Ship No. 140: Specification for Steel Twin Screw Motor Vessel for the Commissioners of Northern Lighthouses. Glasgow, 1962.