It is located on the Ottawa River across from Aylmer, Quebec, adjacent to its namesake, Britannia Bay, north of Richmond Road, west of the Kichi Zibi Mikan and east of Boyce Avenue.

[citation needed] This land where Britannia stands was once a part of a large estate, owned by Captain John LeBreton in 1818.

A cottage town and boating club developed around the site of the old mill; Mr. John Jamieson made a pretty resort out of what was once a sand beach.

[4] Albert Bedingfield's stencil designs, now in the Library and Archives Canada collection, were published by Britannia-Bay, Ottawa, Ont.

During World War II, the Princess Alice Barracks Cabin at Britannia Bay provided a summer home for Royal Canadian Air Force (Women's Division) personnel near the Britannia Boating Club's facilities for tennis, dancing and boating.

Rented from the King's Daughter's Guild of Ottawa, the cabin featured 60 beds, a separate cookhouse and dining pavilion.

[12] The cabin had served the King's Daughter's Guild of Ottawa since 1913 as a Fresh Air Cottage for mothers and undernourished children.

During a kitchen fire at the Fresh Air Cottage on December 11, 1952, Roger Murphy, aged 2 died and 26 residents were left temporarily homeless.

[14] The Fresh Air Cottage on Cassels Street, was expropriated and demolished, and is now part of the conservation area around Mud Lake.

Today, the BYC harbour provides 250 wet moorings, fuel and pump out facilities, for both sail and power boats.

The 23,000 m2 plant, which is situated on 18.7 hectares of city property draws from the Ottawa River and treats an average of about 175 megalitres of water a day.

The neighbourhood has a perhaps one of its kind 1967 EXPO style dome covering a local children's hockey rink that made it to the top 500 architecturally significant buildings in Canada in 2002 as voted by CIRA.

In 2003, Canadian Hydrographic Service published "1550, Britannia Bay to Chat Falls", which was 4 maps on 1 sheet; Previous editions of the cartographic material were produced in 1961, '62, '69, '73, '77, '82, '86, and '96.

[17] In 2003, the City of Ottawa erected a Heritage Designation plaque for William Murphy House, 127 Britannia Road.