It was late afternoon on Saturday 20th December 1873 when the flames were first spotted from the windows of the calendering department halfway down Sugarhouse Wynd in Dundee’s Cowgate. By the time they had been seen, the fire had already caused significant damage. The Fire Brigade were called, but despite their attendance and protracted efforts,Read more ⟶
Category: Curiosities
What have we been up to?
Jeez, where do we start? Best to start with our Deceased in the East tour which we did in early March this year – what a laugh. Who knew death, darkness and mystery could be so funny! If you were one of the 230 folk who managed to make it, you’ll know exactly what we’reRead more ⟶
A Violent Son
Nestled away in a copy of The Evening Telegraph and Post from late July 1905 is a dark tale of a violent ex-soldier. There aren’t many words, as the railway disaster in Liverpool which claimed 20 lives takes up the vast majority of the page, but what it does say paints a vivid picture ofRead more ⟶
Death by fire – just not how you think
Sometimes fires can be deadly, as we all know, but not always in the way we expect. As we’ve been browsing the newspaper archives we’ve noticed a bit of a trend, with deaths by shock following a fire, including one woman in her 80’s dying after the shock and excitement of being evacuated by aRead more ⟶
A Strange Suicide
When an on-duty constable patrolling the harbour on 11th March 1894 noticed something in the water at King William Dock, he quickly called for assistance in dragging it out of the water. When the object was lifted to shore, they quickly realised that what they had pulled out of the Dock was a human bodyRead more ⟶
Away with the faeries
Away with the faeries I was sitting reading a book the other day by Stuart Hardy called ‘Speakin O Dundee’, when I came across a rather far-fetched tale of a young man called Jamie Moir from the Hilltown. Jamie was found by some local men one morning rather worse for wear on the slopes ofRead more ⟶
Return of the zombies
Well, if you’ve read our last post on Castle Horror’s Zombie MAYhem, you’ll know we had an absolute (Tay) whale of a time! Saturday past was no exception either as we rocked up to Mains Castle for the 2nd instalment of the zombie madness. The first thing we noticed was the size of the groupRead more ⟶
Zombie MAYhem
When we took one of our first walking tours, we got chatting with two of the masterminds behind the horrorfest that is Castle Horror – Carrol and Scott. We eagerly took up their offer to come and see them in action training volunteers up for their latest instalment of zombie madness – their ‘Zombie MAYhem’ event inRead more ⟶
Interview with Iain Flett, City Archivist
We asked Iain Flett, City Archivist at the City Archives based under the Caird Hall, a few things about the city’s dark past because if anyone would know, it would be him! Iain has worked for the archives department for 40 years, joining after local government regionalisation in 1975 when some local authorities were introducingRead more ⟶
The ten worst storms in Dundee’s history
Well it’s been a very stormy start to winter with storms Abigail, Barney, Clodagh, Desmond, Eva and Frank hitting our shores, and no doubt more on the way. As much as we all like to have a good moan about the weather, it’s certainly not been the worst Dundee has ever seen! We’ve taken a look atRead more ⟶