Dundee Area

Dundee City Centre

The Frigate Unicorn

Claypotts Castle

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Dundee is Scotland's fourth city and known historically for its shipbuilding and whaling, for its jam, and for its jute industry. It is also known for journalism and for comics: Dundee remains the home of D.C. Thomson, publishers of the Beano and the Dandy.

The city lies on the north bank of the Firth of Tay and is linked to Fife by the Tay Road and Tay Rail bridges. Don't let Dundee's industrial past put you off. There's a shopping centre here that is as good as anything you will find elsewhere in Scotland, and a wide range of activities for visitors. These include the Verdant Works, an award winning museum in an old jute works. On the shore, close to the main railway station, is Discovery Point, complete with Royal Research Ship Discovery, in which Captain Scott sailed to the Antarctic. Nearby you can find the H.M. Frigate Unicorn the oldest British-built warship still afloat.

Dundee is also home to two universities: with all that implies for the availability of restaurants, pubs, and book and record shops.

A little east along the coast from Dundee is Broughty Ferry, now a suburb, but with a distinct and attractive feel, plus Broughty Castle, in an excellent location overlooking the harbour.

Dundee is an ancient settlement, probably being used as a supply base by the Romans during their brief spell in Northern Scotland after AD 83 (see our Historical Timeline). The 1300s and 1400s saw the steady growth of Dundee, fuelled largely by trade with Baltic ports. Town walls were built in 1545, but they did little to protect Dundee from the English fleet, which bombarded the town in 1547, destroying much of it. The town suffered again in September 1644 when the Marquis of Montrose and his Royalist forces besieged it.

Worse followed during the Civil War. General Monck, commanding Cromwell's forces in Scotland, captured Dundee on 1 September 1651, and his troops pillaged the town, killing up to 2,000 of Dundee's 12,000 inhabitants.

The second half of the 1700s saw the city start to grow again, and the population more than doubled as imported flax started to fuel a linen industry. Meanwhile the harbour was improved, and four whaling ships began to operate from Dundee. By 1860 the textile industry employed over 35,000 people out of a total population of just over 90,000. Meanwhile James Keiller of Dundee was successfully selling marmalade made from Seville oranges in the London market.

1878 saw the building of the Tay Rail Bridge, which collapsed with the loss of 75 lives the following year and was replaced in 1887. And by 1870s Dundee was the main British whaling port, being home to 10 steam whalers.

Jute went into a long decline from 1914, mostly because it could be processed more cheaply in India. Its final demise in Dundee came in the 1960s. Meanwhile a shipbuilding industry that had produced, amongst many others, the RRS Discovery, finally came to an end in 1961. In the same year the steamer service from Dundee to London ceased.

Despite these setbacks, Dundee sees in the third millennium as it emerges from its most recent period of regeneration, and with a confidence not felt since the end of the 1800s.