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View Full Version : Archived: Duke of Lancaster (ship) aka The Fun Ship. Report.



bucolic
26-09-2009, 01:42 PM
The Duke of Lancaster began it's commercial life operating cruises until about 1966 when she was painted with the British Rail logo and ran the Belfast - Heysham service as a car ferry.

Demand for a car ferry on this particular route dropped and in 1979 the ship was concreted in at it's final resting place in Mostyn North Wales. Where it overlooks the Dee Estuary to the western end of the Wirral to Liverpool and beyond

Sometime after 1979, The ex-car ferry served as a floating leisure complex and became known to most at the 'Mostyn fun ship'. The bars were re-opened and the decks became a market, restaraunt and cinema, as well as cafe's and an amusement arcade.

The 'fun ship' closed in the 1980's and has lay in Mostyn ever since. It has had very little use apart from maybe storing goods for the local market. Nowadays, all access to the ship itself is completely cut off but it can be seen (and photographed) from a public footpath near to the A548.

*Some Information sourced from
www.bbc.co.uk/wales/northeast/sites/aska local/pages/gen11...

*Thanks to www.hhvferry.com/dukeoflanc.html for some of the factual information, Please visit this excellent site if you wish to read more about the ships history and see some early photos of her.

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