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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The four-star property, which was originally run by the Ladbroke Hotel Group chain, was befitting of its dreamy setting overlooking the Water of Leith at Bell’s Mill, and during its heyday was the venue for countless wedding receptions, AGMs, Jazz Festival events, and high-profile business meetings.
In a 1981 edition of the Student, Edinburgh University's student-run magazine, the ritzy Dragonara was emphatically described as Edinburgh’s “newest and poshest hotel”. The hotel’s Granary bar was billed as the kind of haunt suitable for couples arriving in an “MG Midget”.
By comparison, the Britannia Hotel currently has 2.5 stars on TripAdvisor, and has been slammed by recent guests over noisy rooms, lack of cleanliness and occasional police presence.
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Edinburgh Live’s own Sian Traynor headed to the Britannia last November to check out if the dreadful reviews were accurate and fair. During her brief stay, Sian noted, amongst other things, unwanted hairs in plugholes and mysterious white stains on the carpet.
It’s a real plummet in status for a hotel that, in the 1980s, was thought to be right up there with the finest the capital had to offer and was the regular Edinburgh residence for dozens of top performers of stage and screen.
Gillian Smith worked at the Dragonara soon after it opened and says it was her favourite job and a place where she got the chance to bump shoulders with many famous faces.
Speaking to Edinburgh Live , she said: “I was in my early twenties when I started at the Dragonara. My role was Conference & Banqueting Assistant.
“I loved it from day one. It was an exciting place to work, and, at the time, it was one of the best, if not the best hotels in Edinburgh.
“I met so many celebs there. They were usually very polite and we were often given tickets for shows.
“I once showed Boy George to his room and met Wham!, Duran Duran, Hot Chocolate, Kiss, Cliff Richard, Eric Clapton and Elizabeth Taylor. One time I was working in the cocktail bar and U2 walked in for an interview.
"I remember the actor George Segal staying at the hotel, and Vidal Sassoon holding a product launch there as well. He was a lovely man and I ended up with lots of product!
“It was just a really fun place to work, lots of socialising and no day was the same as the last."
Gillian added: “I hate that it now has such an awful reputation. It’s quite upsetting remembering how beautiful it once was and how proud all the staff were compared to now.
“It would be wonderful if it was bought by someone who could turn it back to what it was before.”
While many people’s memories of the Dragonara in the 1980s are coloured by pomp and prestige, the hotel is also associated with a very tragic episode in Edinburgh’s recent history.
In 1984, Shu-Kee Leung, a Hong Kong-born waiter at the Dragonara, was charged with the brutal killing of 19-year-old Pauline Reilly at Annabel’s disco in Fountainbridge. Leung was sentenced to life in prison following a seven-day trial at the High Court in Edinburgh.
The Dragonara changed hands in 1988 and has since been owned by a number of different companies, including Menzies Hotels and Travelodge. Britannia Hotels purchased the property in 2013 for a reported £10 million.
