Contributions of the group DUNDEE

The Verdant Works Museum

nobody@ipernity.com (Amelia) — Sat, 03 Jan 2026 17:42:56 +0000

Amelia has posted:

Dundee, a city renowned for Jute, Jam and Journalism. In the 18th century the city was already an established centre of textile production, mainly in linen, and made huge quantities of sail cloth for Europe. By the 1830s, jute was produced to supplement linen production and gradually took over until the city became known as ‘Juteopolis’. Janet Keillor, discovered marmalade in the late 1700s. She came upon the recipe through trying to find a use for bitter Seville oranges. Her recipe was developed by her son, James Keillor, who opened Keillor’s factory, famous the world over for producing jams and marmalades. DC Thomson, publishers of The Beano, The Dandy, The Sunday Post and the People’s Friend, was established in 1905 and still employs around 2000 people to this day. It is the home of Dennis the Menace and the Bash Street Kids

'Verdant' seems a strange word to use for a jute factory in the middle of a city, but in 1833, when the jute mill was just starting up, there was an abundance of greenery and nature surrounding the mill.

The ready availability of water (the Scouring Burn) made it a perfect location for a mill. In 1864 the Works ran three steam engines driving 70 power looms and 2,800 spindles. 500 people were employed, making Verdant the 16th biggest employer in the Dundee jute industry of the time.

Working conditions in mills across Scotland were unimaginable in this day and age. Long hours amongst dangerous machines with little to no health and safety precautions were endured by thousands of people, working for minimum wage and living in poverty and battling ‘mill fever’, which often lead to respiratory diseases like bronchitis. Women outnumbered men three to one in the mills, earning our city of Discovery the nickname of ‘she town’.

Unfortunately Verdant Works ceased production and later fell off the register of mills in Dundee in 1889, but then, during the 1900s, under ownership of Alexander Thomson & Sons, Verdant Works was used as a site for recycling jute waste built up as a result of the city’s thriving factories; to cure rabbit skins; and to deal in scrap metal.

Dundee Heritage Trust purchased (the then derelict) Verdant Works in 1991 and began a sympathetic refurbishment of this courtyard type mill, and in 1996, Verdant Works was officially opened to the public as Scotland’s jute museum.

In the third PiP is a volunteer, who worked at the mill in the mid 20th century. She is is chage of the weaving machine, and when she switched it on it was deafening. Hard to imagine the noise that would have been made with all the machinery in this large room once upon a time.

The River Tay Rail Bridge from Fife

nobody@ipernity.com (Amelia) — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 09:14:04 +0000

Amelia has posted:

Magdalen Green bandstand

nobody@ipernity.com (Amelia) — Fri, 21 Nov 2025 11:06:22 +0000

Amelia has posted:

'Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay!
The longest of the present day
That has ever crossed o’er a tidal river stream,
Most gigantic to be seen,
Near by Dundee and the Magdalen Green.'

A verse of the poem,The Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay, by William McGonagall , Scotland's worst poet maybe. The poem is etched along the espalnade between Dundee 'Discovery Point' and the rail bridge.

The Tay Bridge Centenary was in June 1987. I should perhaps first point out that this was the anniversary of the opening of the second Tay Bridge, which still survives today and not its predecessor, which dramatically collapsed some eight years earlier.

Dancing Water

nobody@ipernity.com (Amelia) — Sat, 01 Nov 2025 08:24:54 +0000

Amelia has posted:

HFF from Dundee

nobody@ipernity.com (Amelia) — Fri, 31 Oct 2025 10:12:26 +0000

Amelia has posted:

A sad and disused part of Victoria Dock in Dundee. Maybe they will revive it in order to make a dry dock for HMS Unicorn, which is going to be repaired.

HFF Broughty Ferry

nobody@ipernity.com (Amelia) — Fri, 26 Sep 2025 14:46:35 +0000

Amelia has posted:

RRS Discovery

nobody@ipernity.com (Amelia) — Sun, 17 Aug 2025 13:13:22 +0000

Amelia has posted:

For a few days we will be without a working computer. Enjoy yourselves this week, and I'll visit as soon as I can.

HBM from the The McManus

nobody@ipernity.com (Amelia) — Mon, 04 Aug 2025 07:36:19 +0000

Amelia has posted:

Discovery Point staircase

nobody@ipernity.com (Amelia) — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 20:47:29 +0000

Amelia has posted:

Faces on Discovery Point Compass

nobody@ipernity.com (Amelia) — Sun, 18 May 2025 12:53:39 +0000

Amelia has posted:

SC147 - Post 18 May - Funny

This mosaic features 8 different “winds” represented by unique characterful faces each blowing towards the centre. I would have taken photos of all 8, but Adrian was getting impatient. ;-)

photo by Joe Son of the Rock

Find out more here: www.maggyhowarth.co.uk/blog/dundee-city-centre

North Carr Lightship

nobody@ipernity.com (Amelia) — Wed, 14 May 2025 07:25:24 +0000

Amelia has posted:

The North Carr is believed to be the last remaining Scottish lightship. In 1975 the lightvessel was replaced by an east cardinal buoy and decommissioned. After decommissioning, the vessel served as a floating museum in Anstruther then relocated to Victoria Dock under the ownership of the Taymara (Tay Maritime Action) charity. . It looked rather fine in Anstruther, but unfortunately Taymara were unable to raise sufficient funds for its restoration and the vessel is now destined to be dismantled and scrapped. Such a pity.

Dundee has spent a lot of money on the riverside improvements, and I do feel that some of the money spent should have been used to preserve this lightship.

More details here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Carr_Lightship

HFF

nobody@ipernity.com (Amelia) — Fri, 02 May 2025 15:07:52 +0000

Amelia has posted:

The River Tay Road Bridge Commemorative Obelisk.

The Tay Road Bridge was built to replace the former Tay ferry service, popularly known in Dundee as "the Fifie". A passenger and vehicle ferry service across the River Tay operated from Craigie Pier, Dundee, to Newport-on-Tay. The bridge was opened formally on 18 August 1966, by the Queen Mother, and the bridge authorities organised a day of free events on Sunday 21 August 2016 to celebrate the occasion.

Originally the bridge was originally a bidirectional toll road with the original 1966 toll for motorcycles, cars and goods vehicles of 1/-, 2/6 and 10/-, respectively. On 31 May 2007, the Scottish Parliament voted to scrap tolls on all bridges in Scotland.

I often used to cross the River Tay using the ferry from Newport Fife to Dundee, and remember cart horses pulling trailers piled up with jute on the quayside in the 40s and early 50s. It's all different now. One of the ferries was a paddle steamer. I remember my dad taking me to look at the large pistons which worked the engine on one of the ferries, possibly the paddle steamer.

Behind the obelisk is Dundee's V&A museum, and it's possible to see the rail bridge in the far distance.

Red sails against the silvery Tay

nobody@ipernity.com (Amelia) — Sun, 27 Apr 2025 17:59:59 +0000

Amelia has posted:

SC144 - post 27 April - favourite photo taken by you Jan-March, not previously in the Sunday challenge - in square format.

HFF Staircase to the Tay Road Bridge

nobody@ipernity.com (Amelia) — Fri, 25 Apr 2025 07:34:26 +0000

Amelia has posted:

View from the road bridge

The Telford Beacon

nobody@ipernity.com (Amelia) — Tue, 22 Apr 2025 10:32:44 +0000

Amelia has posted:

Despite its name, the Telford Beacon was designed by James Leslie, a consultant to the famous engineer Thomas Telford. It once sat on the wharf between the tidal harbour and King William IV dock to help guide ships into the dock.

When the docks were filled in to make way for the Tay Road Bridge,opened in 1966, the beacon was left standing 135metres from the new shoreline.

In 2011 the beacon was in danger of being lost when the bridge ramps were rebuilt to make way for the redevelopment of the area. Dundee City Council took the decision to relocate the beacon to this new location on Black Watch Parade.

Dundee Waterfront - Moving the Telford Beacon

HBM from Dundee

nobody@ipernity.com (Amelia) — Mon, 21 Apr 2025 06:48:01 +0000

Amelia has posted:

It seems that everyone had left this area to sort out something to eat for an evening meal. We passed this long bench 2 days later at about 3p.m. and it was packed on both sides with sunbathers. The weather in Scotland was unseasonably hot last week.

Tay Fins

nobody@ipernity.com (Amelia) — Fri, 18 Apr 2025 08:34:52 +0000

Amelia has posted:

Tay Fins is a science art collaboration between visual artist Fanny Lam Christie and the Sea Mammal Research Unit. This bronze sculpture embodies bottlenose dolphins seen regularly in the Tay Estuary, especially near the mouth of the River Tay at Broughty Ferry. We stood here for a time watching for them, but apparently one is more likely to see them on a summer evening.

dolphins.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/fins

Interactive sound installation on the Riverside Esplanade

nobody@ipernity.com (Amelia) — Wed, 16 Apr 2025 07:30:33 +0000

Amelia has posted:

Looking towards Dundee

nobody@ipernity.com (Amelia) — Tue, 23 Jan 2018 09:39:43 +0000

Amelia has posted:

The Tay Bridge (or Tay Rail Bridge) is a railway bridge about two and a quarter miles (three and a half kilometres) long that spans the Firth of Tay in Scotland, between the city of Dundee and Wormit in Fife. It was opened on 20 June 1887.

This 'new' double-track bridge was designed by William Henry Barlow. It was built by William Arrol & Co. 18 metres (59 ft) upstream of, and parallel to, the original bridge. The foundation stone was laid on 6 July 1883 and construction involved 25,000 metric tons of iron and steel, 70,000 metric tons of concrete, ten million bricks (weighing 37,500 metric tons and three million rivets. Fourteen men lost their lives during its construction, most by drowning.

The original Tay Bridge was designed by noted railway engineer Thomas Bouch, It was a lattice-grid design, combining cast and wrought iron. The bridge was opened for passenger traffic on 1 June 1878. On the night of 28 December 1879 at 7.15 pm, the bridge collapsed after its central spans gave way during high winter gales. A train with six carriages carrying seventy-five passengers and crew, crossing at the time of the collapse, plunged into the icy waters of the Tay. All seventy-five were lost.

The stumps of the original bridge piers, seen here, are still visible above the surface of the Tay even at high tide.

'Tickety Boo's'

nobody@ipernity.com (Joe, Son of the Rock) — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 15:38:22 +0000

Joe, Son of the Rock has posted:

Dundee