Brian King

Dundee’s official history as a burgh stretches back more than eight hundred years, though there is much evidence of settlement in the area long before that. The nineteenth century saw its expansion into a large industrial city. This began years of unprecedented change which have seen buildings, industries and ways of life come and go. Dundee suffered more than most cities in the mid-twentieth century drive for modernisation as not only long-established buildings but parts of the ancient street pattern were swept away in large scale demolitions in the 1960s and 1970s. At the same time, the city lost its natural connection with the River Tay as some of its docks were filled in to make way for the landfall of the Tay Road Bridge. More recently the city has sought to reconnect with the river and Dundee continues to evolve, adapting to new changes in lifestyles and ways of working. Lost Dundee presents a portrait of this corner of Scotland over the last century to recent decades that has radically changed or disappeared today, showing not only industries and buildings that have gone but also people and street scenes, many popular places of entertainment and much more. This fascinating photographic history of lost Dundee will appeal to all those who live in the area or know it well, as well as those who remember it from previous decades.

Dundee is a modern city with a long history. It became a royal burgh in the late twelfth century, but the town itself long predates this, and human settlement in the area can be traced back many hundreds of years earlier. In its eight centuries of official existence, Dundee has been a medieval burgh subjected to invasion and conflict, a thriving seaport and centre of trade, and a booming industrial town known worldwide for its ‘Jute, Jam and Journalism’. It officially became a city in 1889 and, shortly after this, began to be documented by the medium of the picture postcard.In many ways Dundee can be considered the home of the picture postcard. In the early years of the twentieth century when the craze for them was at its height, Valentines of Dundee was the world’s largest producer of postcards and their closest Scottish rival J. B. White Limited was also a local firm. Many photographs were taken for postcard production in Dundee and these images have become an invaluable historic archive for local historians. Dundee: The Postcard Collection dips into this archive and presents many rare and fascinating images of the city.