Resort and Ruin

 Content warning – this blog discusses suicide.

A brief history of the Hotel Belle-Vue: from conception, through the struggles of the Fleck family who built and managed it, to a ruinous end.

Windswept and derelict, an elegant edifice once towered over the eastern outskirts of Dunbar. For a teenage Goth travelling the bus route from Eyemouth to Edinburgh for a week’s work experience with the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS), the ruins conjured fancies of Edwardian opulence: promenading parasols; ornate decoration; and created a sense of longing for a seaside getaway. Most of all, the weathered facade conveyed a strange sense of mourning. It hinted at a naïve but hopeful era, now lost to time. A century’s passing left little more than an abandoned husk behind, too devastated to be rebuilt. This was the  Hotel Belle-Vue . Though it was demolished a few years later, it still captures my imagination.

That fortuitous high school work experience was mostly spent transferring an old card catalogue into the  Canmore  record. Whilst there, I discovered the hotel’s late 19th century origins and how it sadly burnt down nearly a century later. The memory would stick with me but it wasn’t until many years later that I began researching the history of the Belle-Vue. Initially, I was simply curious about its architectural history but the unfortunate tale of the family who built and ran the hotel became increasingly compelling the more I learnt.

Mrs Helen Fleck was a devout Catholic and the wife of North Berwick hotelier William Fleck. She lost her husband to heart disease in 1885, laying him to rest alongside three infant sons in  Dalry Cemetery, Edinburgh .

Left to raise her six other children alone, she ran  The Royal Hotel  in North Berwick for nearly a decade and built up an excellent reputation for catered galas and sports events. In late 1892, she sold The Royal Hotel and moved to Edinburgh where she used her wealth to commission plans for a grand hotel up the hill from Dunbar train station, directly across from the parish church.

Architects  Dunn & Finlay  were commissioned to draw up detailed plans, which incorporated elements of the Scottish Arts and Crafts style. They exhibited them at the Royal Scottish Academy in 1896 as building began. It was clear that Helen Fleck wanted a sturdy building to cement the family legacy.

The building’s Art and Crafts style meant that nature symbolism was built into every facet of the hotel. The four seasons were represented over the four main guest floors with 12 public rooms for each month, 52 bedrooms for the weeks within a year, seven bathrooms for the days in a week and an impressive 365 windowpanes for days of the year. Such symbolic emphasis in the structure always struck me as something more than mere design motif, hinting at an almost spiritual reverence for the natural order and the changing of the seasons. This styling was carried over to the internal design as well; with plant motif decoration and a fully oak-panelled dining hall for up to 100 guests.

Opening the summer of 1897, the Belle-Vue provided the luxury every discerning traveller sought. Mrs Fleck was well accustomed to hosting gatherings for local councillors,  Imperial Yeomanry  and British aristocracy, ensuring the Belle-Vue offered only the finest facilities for guests.  Newspaper ads  from London to Edinburgh proclaimed scenic vistas, brisk sea breezes, fully heated accommodation, and access to numerous leisure facilities.

These included on-site tennis courts, an adjoining golf course, and use of the nearby seaside bathing pools. Eventually the front driveway would be widened with a motoring garage added to the grounds for tourists arriving by automobile. The large capacity dining area also made the hotel an excellent venue for gatherings. In 1904, the Belle-Vue would host the floral-filled wedding reception of Helen’s daughter Christina in her marriage to Sergeant Hugh Murdoch, who she’d met as a nurse during the Boer War.

Despite their success, the Flecks were not immune to tragedy. The first two decades of the 20th century had a disastrous impact on the family. This began in 1905 when Helen’s second son, Andrew, took his life in his Northumberland family home. Evidence points to chronic depression, but the associated social and religious stigmas around mental health and suicide may have led to his kin being ostracised. Within the next decade, the First World War led to three of his sisters taking up careers in nursing. As so many soldiers returned from war with severe disabilities and trauma, nurses were in high demand. Helen, Mary and Elizabeth all followed their elder sister Christina into the medical profession. Sadly, Christina’s own husband died on the front in Gallipoli and Mary lost her son during the Second World War. Both Helen and Elizabeth chose to never marry.

Back home at the Belle-Vue, the remaining family members faced growing financial trouble. Helen and her eldest son Joseph were fined for storing petrol without a distribution license and were then forced to declare bankruptcy over new liquor licensing laws. Helen lost ownership of the hotel in 1911, with Mrs Agnes Ruffell and her husband William becoming the new proprietors. Briefly displaced to the West of Scotland, the family were dragged through court again for breaking light restrictions during curfew at two separate hotels.

Ever the socialite, Joseph Fleck overcame the loss of the Belle-Vue by throwing himself into managerial roles at the  Station Hotel in Oban  and the Imperial Unionist Club in Glasgow. Of all the Fleck children, it is Joseph’s story that has stuck with me the most. Perhaps it’s the outsider nature of the eldest son who remained a bachelor when society would have expected him to marry and inherit. I feel it possible to ascribe aspects of queerness to his identity, though there is little hope of verifying this. He was certainly very successful in his own right. He supported local societies and the Yeomanry, being re-elected multiple times as a town councilman throughout his thirties and early forties.

As the war worsened, he took a position managing the Shaftesbury Hotel in the heart of London’s West End. A budget hotel for male clientele, the following years brought fewer and fewer visitors. Though his friends had enlisted, he was too old to be conscripted. His hopelessness grew as the war raged on. Likely suffering depression like that of his brother, Joseph took his life on hotel grounds on the 12th of October 1917. It is clear from the contents of the note he left that he’d convinced himself the Shaftesbury’s clientele would never return. Heartbreakingly, the war would end just over a year later.

Having lost both her adult sons to suicide, Helen Fleck found their losses hard to reconcile with her religious beliefs. In her own words, she felt “the Lord took everything from her by degrees”. So, at the age of 77, she retreated to the Carmelite Convent in Gillingham, Dorset. Adopting the name Sister Mary Teresa in her twilight years, she would pass away in the company of her fellow nuns in 1932.

As for the Belle-Vue, it continued to be a luxury leisure destination for a further half-century. The Edwardian ethos of taking the sea air to improve physical wellbeing fell out of fashion in the face of medical advancement and modern tourism. In 1989, the owners decided to renovate the attic rooms. Workmen’s tools sparked whilst unattended and the central roof space caught fire. No-one was injured, but firefighters futilely battled the blaze all night. By morning, the core of the building was gutted entirely.

Structurally too damaged to be saved, the Belle-Vue spent its last 17 years awaiting an inevitable demise. Though cordoned off behind construction barriers, the ruins were obviously fascinating to bored rural adventurers and curious teens alike. So as not to tempt fate, the rear of the building and its interior walls were demolished shortly after the fire, leaving only the hotel’s grand façade to decay on the headland overlooking the sea.

In the end, my fanciful imaginings of winning the lottery and re-building the Belle-Vue were impossible fantasies. Even so, I did find a way of bringing the place back to life. The story of the Belle-Vue is as much the history of a family as it is a building with a ‘beautiful view’ as its name implies. Even if the Fleck’s architectural legacy no longer stands, at least we can fondly remember the lives and achingly human struggles that shaped the place.

Dictionary of Scottish Architects, Dunn & Findlay Architects, 2016:  https://www.scottisharchitects.org.uk/architect_full.php?id=200755 

Historic Environment Scotland Portal, Queens Road, Hotel Bellevue, 2023:  https://portal.historicenvironment.scot/designation/LB24844 

Glasgow Kennel Club Annual Show, North British Daily Mail, Page 2, 24 Oct 1889

Dumfries Dog Show A Record Exhibition, Dumfries & Galloway Courier & Herald, Page 7, 17 Dec 1892

Marriage of Couple Who Served in the South African War, The Berwickshire News and General Advertiser, Page 3, 07 Jun 1904

A Millwright’s Suicide, Newcastle Daily Chronicle, Page 8, 27 Jun 1905

License Holders Object to Imposition of Retrospective Duties, Dundee Courier, Page 5, 28 May 1910

Scottish Bankrupts, Aberdeen Press & Journal, Page 3, 18 Jan 1911

Lighting Regulations in Oban, Oban Times & Argyllshire Advertiser, Page 5, 28 Aug 1915

Sub-conscious Worry, The Globe, Page 2, 16 Oct 1917

Valuation Roll of the Burgh of Dunbar for the Year 1911-1912, Scotland’s People, National Records of Scotland, Valuation Rolls VR002500008-/429 DUNBAR BURGH 1911, Page 429, 04 Dec 2023

Find A Grave, William Fleck Memorial, Photo by Glenlivet, 06 Jul 2020:  https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/212444285/william-fleck 

Appreciations of Teresa Helena Higginson, Witnesses in Scotland, Brian Honner, 1950s Pamphlet:  https://teresahigginson.blogspot.com/2012/10/appreciations-of-teresa-helena.html 

Genna Bard works at Historic Environment Scotland in the World Heritage & Heritage Policy team. Their job includes community collaboration, organising external and team training, equalities network co-ordination and being editor of the  Lintel  Newsletter. They come from a creative arts background in theatre and are currently writing a supernatural horror novella set in the Belle-Vue Hotel at the turn of the 20th century.