The energy and the success with which Dundee
has in recent times followed industrial and trading pursuits, have
placed it iii a good position among commercial communities, while
the intelligent spirit which has usually marked its progress, and
the liberal use to which much of its wealth has been put, have
entitled it to some distinction. But the town possesses other and
older claims to regard, for it has borne a characteristic and not
unimportant part in events of great national concern, in especial
at the time when genial civil order began to replace rude and
arbitrary power, and when the individual obtained the right to
reasonable liberty of action and broad freedom of conscience. In
the contests which led to these results, and during the perils
through which the issues were established, the municipal annals
show that the burgesses held a notable and an honourable place;
and although the intellectual growth and forwardness of modern
times have encouraged us to undervalue the labours of the past,
and to assume that this is alone the age of progress, yet we must
own that these men in their (lay did good and faithful service in
helping onward the great work. Besides matters of general import,
the records present to us much that may help to illustrate the
system of paternal rule within the burgh, and the process by which
domestic institutions became established, and afford us an
instructive glimpse into the manner of the inner life of the
people and their social habits, which, although only the common
circumstances of a ruder and simpler time, cannot fail to have a
present and constant human interest.
Dundee has a very pleasant
situation upon a declivity fronting the broad estuary of the Tay,
at the southern margin of Forfarshire. In the sixteenth century
its population did not probably exceed eleven thousand, and the
houses only covered the slopes behind and around the harbour, and
did not extend farther north than the little inner valley in front
of the acclivity of the Law, where a burn flowed eastward by
verdant and well-wooded haughs. The town then consisted mainly of
four principal streets, built in irregular lines, and converging
into the central oblong square called the Market Gait; besides a
number of lanes joining these streets and others leading clown to
the harbour. The houses were built of stone, those to the main
streets having usually wooden fronts which stood forward from the
walls, and formed on the ground floor open piazzas, used sometimes
only for entrance porches, but ordinarily either as booths for
traders or workshops for craftsmen. Although the buildings were
mostly of a mean character, many of those belonging to well-to-do
burgesses were massive and substantial, and had the diversified
outlines, the turret stairs, the high-pitched roofs, and the
crow-stepped gables which at an early period characterised
domestic architecture in Scotland ; while internally they were
decorated with panelled walls, arched doorways, and sculptured
chimney-pieces, and possessed many comforts and conveniences.
Several such residences have recently been cast down which must
have stood for at least three centuries.The ecclesiastical
edifices within the burgh previous to the time of the Reformation
were both numerous and important. The Monastery of the Gray
Friars, or Friars Minors, stood upon the ground which is now the
Howff; and that of the Black Friars was near it on the west side
of the Friar Wynd. The house of the Trinity Friars occupied the
Monk's Holm, at the river side, westward from Yeaman Shore; and
the Convent of Gray Sisters stood upon ground between Bank Street
and the Overgate. Of the lesser churches, St. Paul's was at the
south side of the west end of the broad of the Murraygate, and St.
Clement's was behind where the Townhouse is now; besides which a
considerable number of small chapels stood in different localities
throughout the town. The principal church was a magnificent
building dedicated to St. Mary. According to a fairly verified
tradition, an earlier edifice which occupied its place, was
erected by David, Earl of Huntingdon, at the end of the twelfth
century; but this had been of much less size and grandeur than the
one roared two centuries later, of which there now remains only
the stately western tower. The district around Dundee is of a
most pleasing and diversified character, and possesses features of
much natural beauty and associations of some historical interest.
From the summit of the insulated conical hill called the Law, the
base of which forms the background of the town, the surrounding
localities are presented as a series of varied pictures. Eastward,
whore the sea beats upon the sandimills and the links of Barrio,
the eye is carried north by a succession of ridges—one of them
bearing the sculptured Cross of Camus, and another—the Laws
—having around it a wonderful pro-historic stronghold, and is led
along to where the stately house of 1anmure lies in broad and
well-wooded domesnes, and rests on the interesting tower of
Auchenleek, standing engirt with great trees, a high and
weatherworn landmark. Then there is the whole stretch of the
sylvan valley through which the Dighty flows amidst diverse fair
scenes. Near the mouth of the stream lies the house of Grange,
where Montrose is said to have well nigh got out of his captors'
hands and escaped the gallows tree. Farther up is Linlathen, the
home of Thomas Erskine, where, under the shadow of patriarchal
trees, that goodly man loved to noditate upon high thoughts, and
where his rugged friend, Thomas Carlyle, had some refreshing and
peaceful days which he never forgot; Pitkerro, an old house in a
pleasant place, "extraordinarily well planted;" Duntrune, the
ancestral home of that witty and genial gentlewoman, Clementina
Stirling Graham; Ballumby, the stronghold of the lawless Lovells,
whose high-handed doings were a terror to the whole strath;
Claverhouse, the castle now all wasted away, where flourished a
brave race of the gallant Grahams, one of them—Lord Dundee—the
evil genius of the Covenant, and the hero of Jacobite song; Mains
Castle, its tower yet standing among some coeval trees, by the
side of a little den where a burn wimples through nooks that are
fragrant in the time of flowers. And then, where the Dighty runs
clear under green banks which swell into the fertile uplands of
Balmuir and Baldovan, lie the old burgh mills, and the lonely
kirkyard of Strathmartin, and the well where the nine maidens were
slain by the griosly dragon—a story attested to common belief by
the name which the spring yet bears, and by the stone, sculptured
with rude figures of wild beasts and armed men, which stands where
the monster was vanquished. Farther west, in a corner among the
hills, the head waters of the stream flow out of Pitlyal Loch,
where Richard Franck had his fishing bewitched, and out of Lundie
Loch, near to which stood the castle of William Duncan, a worthy
burgess of Dundee, who founded the noble family from whom sprang
the hero of Camperdown. Bounding the other side of the valley are
the Sidlaw Hills, which stand in stalwart line with heath-clad
Craig Owl at their head, and give salubrious shelter to some
primitive villages at their feet, and screen the north from view,
excepting at the Waaslech Glen and other glacks, where there are
glimpses of the distant Grampian Hills beyond Strathmore.
Westward, upon a knoll by the river side, is Invergowrie Church,
its hoary arches draped with ivy. Above it are the great woods
where lies the house of the Lords of Gray—men who were notable in
the eventful Reformation times; and up on the higher ground is
Fowlis Castle, and the quaint old church with the oaken altar
screen upon which the scene of the crucifixion is curiously
painted; and near by, the den, half hidden in foliage, where a
burn brawls under steep banks which in springtime are redolent
with the rath primrose and the wild violet. Farther west, the
Braes of Gowrie swell outward ridge over ridge to IDunsinnan,
where Macbeth's bones are fabled to lie; beyond which other
hills—giants, Schiehallion and some of its compeers, peep up
through the distant haze. The inner roach of the Tay is set amid
fair surroundings, which, by their sinuous and varied outlines,
give it the characteristics of an inland lake, within a background
of wooded slopes, of rocky scaurs, of fruitful valleys, and of
green hills. On the north, the eye is led along by the rich corn
lands of the Carse, dotted with goodly houses—here Castle Huntly
standing on a rocky knoll, and there Rossie Priory embosomed in
noble woods—and it rests upon the amphitheatre of braes beyond,
where Kinnaird Castle and other ruined keeps frown on the peaceful
scene with reminiscences of their own rude uses; and where,
nestling in remote nooks, some primitive hamlets may yet be found,
in which lusty youth grows into cheerful age with a full and
simple enjoyment of life, "And blameless
pleasures dimple quiet's cheek,
As water lilies ripple a slow
stream." On the other side of the river, the bold outlines of
the northern coast of Fife present a succession of diversified
scenes. In the distance, Macdulls Cross and Abernethy Tower stand
as sentinels in the valley, which is dominated by the shapely
front of Clatchart Craig. Nearer lies T4indores Abbey, its arches
broken and its walls crumbling away, but the wasted stones, and
the trailing ivy, and the springy turf of the lonely place, are
yet instinct with associations of ancient sanctity; then
Ballanbreich Castle ruins, standing by the water in a corner of
the old Earnside woods; and Normans Law, fronting forward in bold
and heavy outlines, with the twin peaks of the green Lomonds
shimmering far off in the sunshine; and sweet Birkhill, set amid
hanging woods, which border the rugged coast with a. noble fringe;
and the silent cloisters of Balmcrino Abbey, standing near to the
great chesnut trees that shaded the fishpond in the monks' old
garden; and the green braes of Naughten, rising up from the
water's edge, the little dells in a tangle of wild rose and
bramble and hawthorn bush; and the rounded Gauldry Hill overhead,
in winter so bare, but now all aglow with the golden tassels of
the broom. In its side is Gowle's Den, where the witches used to
hold their revels, and where Thomas Chalmers went to gather
flowers—a, deep cleft in the rock, with the trees lacing overhead,
and a clear brooklet dancing through and down to meet the Mottray
burn at dear Kilmany. Then St. Ford's Hill, rising up by graceful
rounds, the ridges fringed with foliage which screens the fair and
peaceful valley beyond, where summer lingers long; and the great
gray cliffs; "and the haven under the hill;" and Newport, sunny
and bright, with the sylvan den of Tayfield in its midst; and the
rocky scaurs of Scots Craig, having devious glades around their
feet, and their summits crowned with woods; and then over the
braes, from beyond where the sunshine sparkles on the now smooth
waters of the bay, St. Andrews, presenting its venerable towers
and broken walls—silent but eloquent annalists of old memories.
The situation which Dundee occupies upon the sheltered northern
slopes of the river bank, possesses much amenity and considerable
beauty, and gives a free access to the great highways of commerce
which has promoted and developed the important industries of the
busy town. The estuary of the Tay is a broad and noble expanse of
water. From the outer bar, where "these yellow sands" on a calm
day break into tiny ripples the swell of the open sea, it enters
its lower reach between the headlands of Ferryport on the south
and Broughty Castle on the north, and sweeps past the harbour in a
placid sheet which reflects back the shingly beach, and the rocky
ledges, and the wooded banks along its course; and when the
slowly moving clouds have cast upon the scene a life of sunshine
and of shadow, it forms a beautiful picture whereon the eye rests
with much pleasure. The river in its course from the head springs
down to where "the stately ships go on," seems to present a
parallel to the history of the old town with whose enterprise it
has become associated. Rising out of remote sources amid stoney
wastes and barren moors, and flowing by hillside burns, brawling
over rocks, and sluggish streams, oozing through morasses, the
waters mingle in the broad bosom of the lake, where they are
purified, and which they replenish, then roll forward through
fertile straths and fruitful carses in a career of usefulness and
beauty—and so, broadening and deepening, reach the great ocean.
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