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Edinburgh Live
Edinburgh Live
World
David McLean

Edinburgh's worst-rated hotel that used to attract David Bowie and Elizabeth Taylor

Elizabeth Taylor David Bowie Edinburgh Boy George Gillian Smith TripAdvisor Britannia Britannia Hotel

Once the domain of yuppies and celebs, recent decades have not been particularly fruitful for Edinburgh’s former Dragonara Hotel.

The Belford Road establishment, which back in the day attracted a long list of A-listers, such as David Bowie, Elizabeth Taylor, Boy George, Wham!, and Sean Connery, has had a car crash in fortunes and is currently ranked as the capital’s worst hotel on TripAdvisor.

Now operating as budget hotel the Britannia, the Dragonara started out as the kind of hotel that was ready to “anticipate the business needs of the eighties”. At the opening ceremony in July 1981, Alan Devereux, Chairman of the Scottish Tourist Board, went as far to label the Dragonara as “one of the great hotel developments that has taken place over the last 50 years in Scotland”.

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