Harland and Wolff - Shipbuilding and Engineering Works

Had accommodation for 600 First and 1200 Second-class passengers. There were two cargo holds for'd, tween-deck storage fore and aft for general-cargo and cars (hoisted aboard). Baggage, mails etc. were carried in special compartments aft. She was a Twin Turbine Steamer, geared by double-reduction train to the screws, and steamed by oil-burning Babcock and Wilcox water-tube boilers with forced draught. She had special fittings to enable cruises to be undertaken to the West Highlands, Norway, etc.

She was in BR/Sealink service between Heysham and Ireland from 1956 on, but was sold in 1979 to Empire Trading of Liverpool, replaced on the Irish sea services by roll-on roll-off vessels.

In 1980 she was towed across Liverpool Bay to Llanerch-Y-Mor, Deeside, beached at high tide and was concreted in ASAP afterwards. As well as being a night club the Duke of Lancaster also served for a while as a supermarket.

It was featured in the 2011 series of BBC Two's Coast.

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. The ship is slowly being covered with graffiti described as "bright and surreal". 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. One of the artworks is a picture of the ship's first captain, John 'Jack' Irwin.