Duke of Lancaster
History
The Lancaster was sold to Liverpool based company Empirewise Ltd, who intended her to be used as a static leisure centre and market. She arrived at her new home at Llanerch-y-Mor, just south from Mostyn in north Wales, on 10 August 1979.[1] The ship was brought into a permanent dock and surrounded by a large tonnage of sand pulled out of the Dee estuary. Known as "The Fun Ship", it was also possible to visit her bridge and engine room. The Funship was very successful and became the third most popular tourist attraction in the Country but due to being repeatedly attacked by the local authorities with the claiming of monopoly rights regards the Councils' market and the Funship market being too close therefore in direct competition was ordered to close down. They also served 13 enforcement notices on the Funship (eleven of which were quashed, one withdrawn), one of which was in regards to building a 5.5m wall in proximity to the ship. The Secretary of State reached an agreement with the Council and an undisclosed sum of money was awarded to the Funship owners. This process took 5-6 years to reach this stage, by which time the damage to the ship had been done. The owners came to the decision to halt the Funship business from then on.
The ship was later used as a warehouse by its owners Solitaire Liverpool Ltd, a clothing company registered to the same address as Empirewise Ltd.[3]
Despite having large amounts of its exterior paintwork covered in rust, the interior of the ship is in good condition. It was featured in the 2011 series of BBC Two's Coast.
In early 2012 several local arcade game collectors made a deal with Solitaire Liverpool Ltd and were able to purchase most of the coin operated machines left behind inside the ship at the time the fun ship closed. Removing the games required the use of cranes and other heavy lifting equipment.
Future Plans
The plan is to transform the ship into the largest open air art gallery in the UK. As of August 2012, the Latvian graffiti artist "Kiwie" was commissioned to spraypaint a design on the ship.[4] The ship is slowly being covered with graffiti described as "bright and surreal".[5] The first phase of the project saw Kiwie and other European graffiti artists paint murals on the ship between August and November 2012, and the second phase (starting at the end of March 2013) included the work of British-based artists such as Snub23, Spacehop, Dan Kitchener and Dale Grimshaw.[6] One of the artworks is a picture of the ship's first captain, John 'Jack' Irwin.
I decided to shoot the Duke of Lancaster In Wales which is an abandoned ship I thought
that this would have been perfect for the iconic status as the Duke of
Lancaster was made by the makers of the Titanic. From my researched I knew it
had been graffiti'd on, whilst photographing
this magnificent ship my only thought was that this is not being used
to its full potential and we should utilise abandoned buildings/
places for the public to access them .
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