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Dundee
At first sight, DUNDEE
can seem a grim place. In the nineteenth century it was Britain's
main processor of jute, the world's most important vegetable
fibre after cotton, which earned the city the tag "Juteopolis".
The decline of manufacturing wasn't kind to Dundee, but regeneration
is very much the buzz-word today, with some commentators drawing
comparisons to Glasgow's reinvention of itself as a city
of culture in the 1980s and 1990s. Less apparent is the city's
international reputation as a centre of biotechnology and cancer
research, a theme soon to be given a notable monument in the
construction of a cancer care centre, the first public commission
in the UK of Frank O. Gehry, the world-famous
US architect responsible for Bilbao's Guggenheim.
The major sight is Captain
Scott's Antarctic explorer ship, RRS Discovery . Verdant Works
is a recreated jute mill which has picked up tourism awards for
its take on the city's distinctive industrial heritage. You should
also try to spend some time at the upbeat DCA (Dundee Contemporary
Arts), the totemic building of the developing cultural quarter
around which most of the city's lively artistic and social life
revolves. Four miles east of the city centre lies the seaside
settlement of Broughty Ferry , now engulfed as a reluctant suburb.
Comprising an eclectic mix of big villas built by jute barons
up the hillside and small fishermen's cottages along the shoreline,
"The Ferry", as it's known, has experienced a recent
resurgence in popularity, and is a pleasant and relaxing spot
with some good restaurants and pubs.
Even prior to its Victorian
heyday, Dundee was a town of considerable importance. It was
here in 1309 that Robert the Bruce was proclaimed the lawful
King of Scots, and during the Reformation it earned itself a
reputation for tolerance, sheltering leading figures such as
John Knox . After destruction by the Jacobite Viscount Dundee,
the city picked itself up in the 1800s, its train and harbour
links making it a major centre for shipbuilding, whaling and
the manufacture of jute . This, along with jam and journalism
- the three Js which famously defined the city - has all but
disappeared, with only local publishing giant D.C. Thomson, publisher
of the timelessly popular Beano and Dandy comics, as well as
a spread of other comics and newspapers, still playing a meaningful
role in the city.
The best approach to Dundee
is across the mile-and-a-half-long Tay Road Bridge from Fife.
While the Tay bridges aren't nearly as spectacular as the bridges
over the Forth near Edinburgh, they do offer a magnificent panorama
of the city on the northern bank of the firth. The bridge, opened
in 1966, has a central walkway for pedestrians. An 80p toll is
levied on cars leaving the city, but you can enter from the south
for free. Running parallel half a mile upstream is the Tay Rail
Bridge , opened in 1887 to replace the spindly structure which
collapsed in a storm in May 1878 only eighteen months after it
was built, killing the crew and 75 passengers on a train passing
over the bridge at the time.
Dundee's city centre is
focused on City Square , a couple of hundred yards north of the
Tay. The attractive square, set in front of the city's imposing
Caird Hall, has been much spruced up in recent years, with fountains,
benches and extensive pedestrianization making for a relaxing
environment, though the grand old buildings and churches close
to the centre have been rather overwhelmed by large shopping
malls filled with a mundane mass of chain stores.
The main street, which
is pedestrianized as it passes City Square, starts as Nethergate
in the west, becomes High Street in the centre, then divides
into Murraygate (which is also pedestrianized) and Seagate. Opposite
this junction is the mottled spire of St Paul's Episcopal Cathedral
(open to the public, though hours vary; free), a rather gaudy
Gothic Revival structure by George Gilbert Scott, notable for
its vividly sentimental stained glass and floridly gilded high
altar.
At the other old church
in the centre, St Mary's, now engulfed by the vast Overgate Shopping
Centre, is an attraction called The Old Steeple (April-Sept Mon-Sat
10am-5pm, Sun noon-4pm; Oct-March Mon-Sat 11am-4pm, Sun noon-4pm;
joint ticket with Verdant Works and Discovery Point). Led by
a guide, you'll have to tackle a lot of steps, encountering along
the way the belfry and the church's massive, seven-ton bells,
followed by the mechanism for the steeple's clock. At the top
you step out onto a parapet for great views over the city and
the Tay with its bridges.
A hundred yards north of
City Square, at the top of Reform Street, is the attractive Albert
Square , home of the imposing D.C. Thomson building, Dundee High
School and, on its eastern side, the McManus
Art Galleries and Museum
(Mon-Sat 10.30am-5pm, Thurs until 7pm, Sun 12.30-4pm; free).
Designed by Gilbert Scott, the museum is Dundee's most impressive
Victorian structure, with a delightful sweep of outside curved
stone staircases and elaborate Gothic touches. Inside, the museum
gives an excellent overview of the city's past, with displays
ranging from Pictish stones to the Tay Bridge disaster. On the
ground floor, the most impressive exhibit is the skeleton of
a whale, washed up on a nearby beach in 1883 and eulogized in
a poem by William McGonagall, a strong contender for the title
of the world's worst poet ("'Twas in the month of December,
and in the year 1883,/That a monster whale came to Dundee").
Upstairs, the magnificent Albert Hall - crowned by a roof of
480 pitch-pine panels in a Gothic arch - houses antique musical
instruments, decorative glass, gold, silver, sculpture and some
exquisite furniture. On the same floor, the barrel-roofed Victoria
Gallery 's red walls are packed with nineteenth- and twentieth-century
paintings, including some notable Pre-Raphaelite and Scottish
collections, William McTaggart's seascapes being a particular
highlight.
Across Ward Road from the
museum, the Howff Burial Ground on Meadowside (daily 9am to dusk)
has some great carved tombstones dating from the sixteenth to
nineteenth centuries. Originally gardens belonging to a monastery,
the land was given to Dundee for burials in 1564 by Mary, Queen
of Scots. Five minutes' walk west of here, on West Henderson
Wynd in Blackness, an award-winning museum, Verdant Works , tells
the story of jute from its harvesting in India to its arrival
in Dundee on clipper ships (opening hours under review - check
on 01382/225282; joint ticket with Discovery Point and Old Steeple
£12.15). In the nineteenth century, Dundee's jute mills
employed fifty thousand people and were responsible for the rapid
industrialization and development of the city as a trading port.
The museum, set in an old jute mill, makes a lively attempt to
recreate the turn-of-the-century factory floor, the highlight
being the chance to watch jute being processed on fully operational
quarter-size machines originally used for training workers.
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