Leith, Edinburgh, Scotland
For forty-four years this was the one home of Queen Elizabeth II that could go to sea. It sailed a million miles, carried four royal honeymoons and took the last governor out of Hong Kong. The clocks on board are stopped at one minute past three.
Photo: David Dixon, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons
You are on a wooden deck beside a funnel painted cream. The hull below you is dark blue with a single line of gold. There are no guns. Through the windows you can see armchairs covered in flowered cloth, and beyond the stern a shopping centre.
The ship was launched on 16 April 1953, seven weeks before its owner was crowned. In that year the war in Korea stopped, two men first stood on top of Everest, and China began its first five-year plan.
One ticket covers the whole ship, with an audio guide. You may stay as long as you like.
| Part | Ticket |
|---|---|
| The visitor centre in Ocean Terminal | With the ticket; the way on board |
| The bridge | Included |
| The royal bedrooms and sun lounge | Included; seen through glass |
| The dining and drawing rooms | Included |
| The crew's quarters | Included |
| The engine room | Included; seen through glass |
| The Royal Deck Tearoom | Open to ticket holders; food is extra |
| The racing yacht Bloodhound | Included; alongside when she is not away sailing |
Britain had ruled an empire by sea, and its kings and queens had kept a yacht since 1660. This was the eighty-third and the last. It was built on the River Clyde, near Glasgow, as a small ocean liner with the furniture of a country house.
Its work was to carry the Queen to countries where she was head of state or a guest, and to be a piece of Britain tied up at the quay when she got there. Presidents and prime ministers came to dinner on board. In 1986 it lay at Shanghai and the Queen gave a banquet for her Chinese hosts.
It cost a great deal to run. In 1997 the government retired it and did not build another. The Queen, who was not seen to cry in public, wiped her eyes at the ceremony.
Since 1998 it has been moored here in Leith, the port of Edinburgh, and you may walk through all five decks.
"A yacht is a sailing boat." This one is a steamship 126 metres long, with a crew of about 240.
"It must be all gold inside." The Queen asked for it to be plain. The rooms look like a comfortable English house of the 1950s, with an electric fire and sofas in chintz.
"The Queen and the Duke shared a cabin." They had separate bedrooms with a door between, each with a single bed.
"It is in Edinburgh Castle, or on the Thames." It is at Leith, three kilometres north of the centre of Edinburgh, and you board it from the second floor of a shopping centre.
"It was a warship." It belonged to the navy and was crewed by sailors, but carried no weapons. It was designed to be turned into a hospital ship in war, and never was.
The tour starts at the top of the ship and works down. The stops follow it.
For most of its life the ship was commanded from this small room by an admiral, which is rare for a vessel of this size. There is no wheel here. The steering was done one deck below, by men who could not see out, following orders passed down a voice pipe.
Near the royal rooms, orders on deck were given by hand signals so that no one shouted. The crew wore soft shoes. Any work near the Queen's windows had to be finished by eight in the morning.
The room at the back of the upper deck, with wide windows and cane chairs, was the Queen's favourite. She took breakfast and afternoon tea here.
Her bedroom and the Duke's are side by side. You look in through glass. They are the only bedrooms of a living monarch ever shown to the public. Further along is the one double bed on board, brought by Prince Charles for his honeymoon with Diana in 1981.
This is the largest room on the ship. The table seats fifty-six. Laying it took three hours, and the position of every knife and glass was checked with a ruler.
Round the walls are gifts from the voyages: a whale's rib picked up on a beach in the Antarctic, a sword from a Gulf ruler, carved figures from the Pacific islands. When dinner was cleared the room became a cinema, and on Sundays a church.
The family sat here in the evenings. The designers first proposed a grand scheme, and the Queen and the Duke turned it down as too showy. The sofas are covered in flowered cotton and there is an electric fire, because a coal fire at sea would have needed a sailor standing by with a bucket.
The small piano is bolted to the deck. Princess Diana played it, and so did the playwright Noël Coward.
On the upper deck is a glass box with a Rolls-Royce inside. The car travelled with the ship for use ashore. It fitted its garage so closely that the bumpers had to be taken off each time it was hoisted aboard.
Beside the ship floats a motor launch twelve metres long, in the same blue and gold. When the yacht could not come alongside a quay, the Queen went ashore in this.
The officers had a dining room of their own, with silver on the table and a wooden monkey that was hidden somewhere new each day as a game.
The sailors were called Yotties. They were volunteers from the navy, and many stayed twenty years. Until the early 1970s most of them slept in hammocks. Go through their mess decks, the three bars, the laundry that ran day and night in the tropics, and the sick bay with its operating table.
Two steam turbines of 12,000 horsepower drove the ship at 22 knots. Look through the glass: white paint, brass, chrome, not a drop of oil. It was kept like this at sea.
An American general who was shown round is said to have looked and asked: "I've seen the museum piece. Now where is the real engine room?"
At midnight on 30 June 1997 Hong Kong returned to China after 156 years of British rule. A few minutes later this ship left the harbour in the rain, carrying Prince Charles and the last governor, Chris Patten. It was the yacht's final foreign duty.
It was paid off at Portsmouth on 11 December. Every clock on board was stopped at 3:01, the moment the Queen went ashore. They have not been started again.
| Year | Here | Elsewhere |
|---|---|---|
| 1953 | The yacht is launched on the Clyde | China begins its first five-year plan; the Korean War stops; Everest is climbed |
| 1959 | It sails up the St Lawrence to Chicago for the opening of the seaway | The tenth year of the People's Republic; the first pictures of the far side of the moon |
| 1981 | Charles and Diana spend their honeymoon on board | China is three years into reform and opening; the first space shuttle flies |
| 1986 | It rescues more than a thousand people from civil war in Aden, then carries the Queen to Shanghai | The first visit to China by a British monarch |
| 1997 | Hong Kong in July; retired in December | Hong Kong returns to China |
| 1998 | Opened to visitors at Leith | The year before Scotland gets its own parliament again |
Films from official channels, played from YouTube. Nothing is loaded until you press play.
These are stories people tell about this place. They are legends, not history, and each one says where it comes from.
A toy wombat lived in the officers' dining room. After dinner it was thrown up into the blades of the ceiling fan and batted about the room. It was rescued and mended many times.
Source: Recollections of the yacht's officers, told on the tour
Later, people who live here will be able to add the stories they grew up with, and say which of these they have heard.
Last checked 2026-11-12. The yacht's own site (royalyachtbritannia.co.uk), opening hours and ticket prices as shown in November 2026.
Checked 2026-11-12
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