January 2022: Dundee

Background

With a population of around 150,000, Dundee is Scotland’s fourth-largest city. Lying on the north bank of the Firth of Tay, Dundee is around 56 miles north (and a little east) of Edinburgh. (Of course such a journey must start in a westerly direction, in order to reach one of the Forth bridges.) In common with Scotland’s three larger cities, Dundee forms a council area in its own right; historically, it was part of Angus. With an economy traditionally based on the so-called ‘3 Js’ (jute, jam and journalism), Dundee has been busy reinventing itself as a centre of technology (particularly computer games) and cultural attractions.

Bruce has developed a tradition of visiting me towards the end of January: we tend to call it the Burns Night Visit, although it probably derives mainly from his penchant for off-season travel. For several years now, it has also been a welcome chance to meet up with Glasgow-based friends Calum and Tom. The four of us had originally planned a Dundee weekend for the previous year, but this had unravelled because of Covid restrictions. This time around, thankfully, the venture met with success.

Arrival & Accommodation

Bruce and I travelled on a ScotRail service from Haymarket (Edinburgh) on Saturday morning, and were delighted to find that it only stopped once, at Leuchars for St Andrews. Accommodation in Dundee was at the Malmaison, which could hardly have been handier for the station. Later, when the full group was assembled, the hotel was also the venue for our Saturday-night dinner.

V&A Dundee

V&A Dundee is both Scotland’s first design museum and the first V&A museum outside London. Opening in September 2018, it achieved its Year 1 visitor target within six months. Ever since the opening, it was one of those places that I intended to visit, but somehow never got around to it. (The Covid-19 pandemic obviously didn’t help.) Bruce and I finally made a joint ‘first visit’ on the Saturday afternoon of this trip.

In the event, I really enjoyed my first experience of the place. I thought the attention-grabbing exterior worked well in the maritime setting of the city’s waterfront, found the Tatha Bar & Kitchen to be excellent and the overall interior stunning. The only downside was that the museum was ‘between’ temporary exhibits at the time of our visit, so that the space set aside for these was empty.

McManus Art Gallery & Museum

The McManus (strapline: Dundee’s Art Gallery and Museum) dates from 1867. The much loved Gothic Revival building is the work of renowned architect George Gilbert Scott, whose work incudes St Mary’s Cathedral (Edinburgh West End), the Midland Grand Hotel at St Pancras Station and the Albert Memorial (both in central London). Scott’s main passion was ecclesiastical architecture and I felt that there were signs of this even in a purely secular building like the McManus. The four of us visited on Sunday afternoon.