Dundee Calendering Company Fire

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, […]

The burning of the city churches

The site of the city churches, St Mary’s and The Steeple, which sit surrounded by the Overgate shopping centre, has been the home to a church since the very beginnings of Dundee as a town. When the Earl of Huntingdon landed here in 1190 he founded the ‘kirk in the field’ dedicated to St Mary, […]

Bonnie Susie Cleland

The song ‘Bonnie Susie Cleland’ tells a particularly brutal tale of a young Scots woman being burned at the stake by her family for falling in love with an Englishman.