Dundee - RRS Discovery

Last set from Dundee.  Next to the V&A, in dry dock, is Dundee's other historic ship, the RRS Discovery.  Discovery is a sail & steam ship, built for Antarctic research. Launched in 1901, she was the first vessel to be constructed specifically for scientific research and one of the last wooden three-masted sailing ships to be built in Britain.  Among the crew for Discovery's first Antarctic expedition were Ernest Shackleton and the incompetent fool Robert Falcon Scott.  After this first expedition ended in 1905, Discovery was used for many years as as a cargo vessel.  But she returned to research in the 1920s, making further expeditions to the Antarctic and southern ocean.  Discovery ended her sailing days as a training vessel for sea scouts and Royal Navy reserves.

As well as the ship itself, there is also a visitor centre, which puts Discovery in context of Antarctic exploration.  When I visited this was undergoing redevelopment.  There was a temporary entrance, and the 'Discovery Point Dome, offering 360°panoramic views of the city, waterfront and River Tay', was behind schedule and not yet open.  But the exhibition itself was good, offering far more detail than could be achieved on-board.

Dundee - HMS Unicorn

HMS Unicorn is a 46-gun Leda-class frigate, launched in 1824.  Unicorn is the 3rd oldest ship still afloat in the world (after USS Constitution and HMS Trincomalee) and the fourth oldest surviving ship in Britain (after Mary Rose, HMS Victory and Trincomalee).  By the time Unicorn was completed, ‘Pax Britannica’ (the long era of peace in Europe from the end of the Napoleonic Wars to the outbreak of the First World War) had begun, so she wasn’t required for service.  Masts were never fitted.  Instead, a roof was built over Unicorn's weather deck and she was laid up 'in ordinary'.  Unicorn was later used as a powder store at Woolwich Arsenal, before being moved to Dundee in 1873 for use as a naval reserve training ship.  

Because Unicorn was roofed soon after completion, never saw battle, and only saw the open sea when towed to Dundee, she is the best preserved historic ship in existence.  Over 90% of Unicorn's timbers are original to her construction.  Compare that with the 'Trigger's Broom' that is the Cutty Sark.  On many of Unicorns timbers it is still possible to see the carpenter's marks.  These were used in construction as tags to distinguish the type of wood, seasoning and position in the ship.  Unicorn's design also includes innovations of the industrial revolution.  The hull is reinforced with iron bracing straps and iron knees which support the decks.

Strawberry Fair

We interrupt tales from Dundee with a musical interlude.  After a 2-year Covid break, Strawberry Fair returned last Saturday.  People were clearly in the mood for a good time and the site was busy right from the opening.  As usual the bands improved as they day went on and I saw a couple I really enjoyed before I left in the early evening.  I also loved the aerial performances from the Cambridge Community Circus.

Dundee - In The Blue Hour

Here come the inevitable night shots.  I only had three nights in Dundee and the first wasn't that great, so with only two brief blue hours to play with, I pretty much stuck to the star of the trip.  I did venture down the waterfront to see what else I could find.  There was a lovely cobbled street that I had been planning to shoot once the street lamps were on.  I was surprised and disappointed when I walked down to it and they weren't lit.  I was even more surprised when I looked the next day and found the lamps didn't have any bulbs!  Fortunately the picture of some kind of rig in the commercial port made it worth the walk.  I like the harmony of the blues and yellows.  But my favourite shot is the other blue and yellow one at the bottom.  The steel structure was covering a children's play area and, once viewed from far enough back, was in the shape of a whale.  Here I have exaggerated it with a wide-angle lens.

Dundee - The Howff

The Howff is a burial ground in the centre of Dundee.  The site was originally the gardens of a Grey-friars  monastery until that was destroyed, during the Scottish Reformation, in 1547-48. The land was granted to the town as a place of burial by Mary Queen of Scots in 1564.  It was also used a meeting place by the nine incorporated trades of Dundee, until 1776. Howff is a Scots word meaning an enclosed open space or yard.  There are an estimated 80,000 burials in the Howff Cemetery, with around 1,000 headstones, many of which are carved with the emblems of the nines trades. Many of the inscriptions really ram home the dour Calvinist Scots cliché.  A dedication to two dead babies rates amongst the bleakest things I have ever read.

Grief inspired poetic musings on the futility of existence aside, I found the Howff a beautiful peaceful place. It supported a variety of wildlife, lots or birds and a surprising amount of rabbits.

I saw a couple of dead rabbits, so something was predating them.  Maybe it was the Herring gulls (?).  I saw one scavenging a rabbit that had been dead for a while.  But, I also saw one patiently watching the gaps under one tombstone where a couple of young rabbits were hiding.

Dundee - The V&A

I recently spent a few days in Dundee.  I chose Dundee for a city break for a few reasons.  It seemed an interesting place, it was somewhere I had never been before, I got to travel there on the Caledonian sleeper (cross that one off the bucket list), but, the main one was that I wanted to photograph the new V&A building.

The V&A Dundee opened 2018 and is the first Victoria and Albert museum outside London.  Designed by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, it is at the centre of a £1 billion regeneration of the Dundee waterfront.  Curving concrete walls (there are no straight external walls) hold 2,500 pre-cast rough stone panels, to create the appearance of a Scottish cliff face.

I was staying at a Premier Inn about a 5 minute walk from the V&A and the RRS Discovery, next to it.  This meant that it was easy to see the building at different times of day and, it turned out, in different weathers.  Of the different viewpoints I was able to find, I really like the third image.  The masts of Discovery and the curve of the building make it look like one massive ship.

 

 

 

Whilst on the outside the building is a beautiful piece of architecture, the inside is underwhelming.  There just wasn't much there.  More space seemed to be set aside for meeting rooms than exhibition spaces.  Charles Rennie Mackintosh's Oak Room is probably the star piece (nice to see some of Mackintosh's work in Scotland that hasn't been reduced to cinders).  A furniture design exhibit had all the joy of a trip to Ikea (minus the meatballs) and frankly too much room was devoted to a video installation about a dancer.  Of most interest photographically was a 'colourful interactive playscape' on the ground floor.  Sadly, I didn't see many people interacting with it.