The 16th century was a time of religious upheaval caused, in part, by the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation. As the shockwave of religious division extended across Europe, fear spread that the Day of Judgement had arrived.
DD Tours
DD Tours is run by Stewart and Louise, 2 local tour guides who love sharing the stories of Dundee's history on our walking tours.
Broughty Castle
Completed around 1495, the site had been earlier fortified in 1454 when George Douglas, 4th Earl of Angus received permission to build on the site. His son Archibald Douglas, 5th Earl of Angus was coerced into ceding the castle to the crown.
Workers of the mills
Weaving was big business in Dundee as far back as the 16th century. After the Union with England in 1707 ended military hostilities, Dundee recovered from the devastation of the Siege of Dundee by General Monck in 1651 and established itself as an industrial and trading centre.
Grissell Jaffray
Grissell Jaffray is famous in Dundee history for the crime of being a witch. She was choked and burned at the stake in a public execution and is the last person to have been burned in Dundee for the crime of witchcraft.
Dundee Lunatic Asylum
At the time of it’s opening on Albert Street, there were three patients admitted to the Dundee Lunatic Asylum, but as time went on, these numbers swelled to proportions that became unmanageable for the premises,
The Meal Riots
In 16th century Scotland, a series of riots began to unfold along the East coast of Scotland. Believed to have started in Fife, the riots quickly escalated and involved hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of angry protestors.
Black magic & the occult
For decades, there have been rumours about supposed black magic rituals being undertaken in well-known local sites such as Balgay hill, the Law, Ballumbie, Templeton Woods and Claypotts Castle, to name but a few.
Murder in Dundee
Dundee recently earned itself the notorious title of “Murder Capital of Scotland”, based on it’s percentage of murders to overall population. It’s certainly not something we as a city should be proud of.
The Mars Training Ship
For sixty years, the Mars Training Ship lay anchored on the River Tay at Dundee and it became a famous local landmark, embedded in Dundee history.
Debauchery
Surprisingly little in the way of research has been undertaken into the history of sex, gambling and drunkenness in Dundee. There is a lot of information from the late-nineteenth and early twentieth-century about the lives of the mass female workforce in Jute Mills