I was so sad to see on the TV news last nighty that Willison House in Dundee – subject of my post Dundee Art Deco Heritage 4 – aka Robertson’s Furniture Store and a listed building, has been ravaged by a fire that was apparently set deliberately.

It seems the damage is so severe that demolition will be the only recourse.

My only consolation is that I saw and photographed – it before it became too much of an eyesore.

I show it again as it was in happier times.

I’ve just seen a report of the death of Jim McLean, the man who led Dundee United to the greatest successes in their history (bar a Scottish Cup win.)

Following two earlier League Cup wins (themselves the club’s first major trophies,) in 1983 his stewardship found them winning the League and becoming champions of Scotland. With hindsight that seems even more remarkable than it did at the time. As I recall (but don’t quote me) they achieved that using no more than 15 players in total over the whole season.

The next season saw an even more incredible achievement, a European Cup semi-final (matching the effort of their city rivals, Dundee, from 1963.) Then there was a UEFA Cup final appearance (thereby eclipsing their neighbours) in 1987. The most astonishing statistic of the club’s European games under McLean’s leadership is their two wins against Barcelona (OK, they were not the force at the that time they were to become but it was still a huge scalp) in that EUFA Cup run. Curiously the club had also beaten Barcelona home and away in the equivalent competition, the Inter Cities Fairs Cup, in 1966.

Some controversy surrounded McLena’s treatment of players, especially as regards the details of their contracts, but he nurtured many who went on to forge big careers in the game. His relationships with members of the press were not always rosy though. He was a personality, no doubt.

As a pure manager, though, his record is nothing short of amazing.

James Yuille (Jim) McLean: 2/12/1937 – 26/12/2020. So it goes.

The Verdant Works Dundee is a museum of the city’s heritage of jute production, housed in a former jute mill. It’s somewhere we had meant to visit for a while but when we’re in Dundee we’re usually busy doing something else or going on somewhere else. The cruise ship docking there gave us the opportunity to pop in for a look.

The guide was a former jute worker who operated all the machinery for us. The noise of each one was very loud. Considering that the machines are only third-size it made you realise what a cacophony the real environment with twenty or more carding, rolling, spinning etc machines on the go must have been. Many people went deaf.

Jute bales:-

Interior from upper floor:-

Verdant Works ceiling:-

Upper floor and ceiling. The wood is lovely:-

Beam engine which used to power the machines:-

Photo in the Verdant Works of the Art Deco Taybank Jute Works, Dundee, Spinning Department, opened 1949. I have photographed this building myself in 2009.

The first stop on the cruise we took last year was … Dundee! It’s only about twenty-five miles or so away from Son of the Rock Acres but it cost £200 less, each, for us to board at Newcastle rather than embark a day later at Dundee. No brainer.

The ship’s docking point in Scotland’s fourth city did give me a view of the Tay Bridge I hadn’t had before, though.

To the extreme right of the above photo is the new V&A Dundee, better seen in the photo below with RSS Discovery and Discovery Point beyond V&A:-

Wandering round the city centre I came across these stone penguins having a wee daunder:-

Nearby was this plaque commemorating the 70th anniversary of the end of the Great War. “Dedicated to the glory of god and to those men and women who in all corners of the world gave their lives in service of our beloved country. We Will Remember Them, 11th November 1989.”

This Oak Room was designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh for Miss Cranston’s Tea Rooms, Ingram Street, Glasgow.

After those tea rooms closed for business the room was for many years stored by Glasgow Corporation and then Glasgow Museums.

The construction of the V&A Dundee provided a space for the rooms to be on show to the public once more.

Since Falkland is only about four miles from Son of the Rock Acres I was interested in this picture of Falkland Palace as it looked in mediæval times:-

Eduardo Paolozzi designed case for storing catalogues for Nairn Floors Ltd:-

Turkey Red Designs:-

Geometric brooches:-

“Butterfly” Tiara:-

Further to my post on Abbotsford, Walter Scott must be one of the few writers to have such a legacy, which I mentioned here.

In the section of the new V&A Dundee (posts passim) devoted to Scottish design there is a model of the Scott Monument the original of which stands in Princes Street, Edinburgh.

Model of Scott Monument:-

There is also a Robert Adam chimneypiece:-

Some Arts & Crafts furniture:-

A brooch designed to resemble a galaxy:-

A poster for the Festival of Britain‘s Industrial Light and Power Exhibition at the Kelvin Hall Glasgow:-

And a bookcase/cabinet by George Logan:-

Previously I have posted about the (relatively) new V&A building in Dundee here and, in the background, here.

V&A logo by entrance:-

Exterior curve:-

View to Tay Bridge through “tunnel”:-

Apparently the wind can sweep through the tunnel quite severely. View to city through tunnel:-

Overhanging River Tay:-

Exterior planting:-

Interior:-

View of Tay Bridge through slit window:-

Again, I’ve passed this countless times on my way to and from Brechin but only stopped to photograph it in August last year.

From road – complete with skip:-

From access road – skip again:-

The entrance doors are decoish too:-

Side view:-

Rear:-

Ladybank is a village in Fife only a few miles away from Son of the Rock Acres. It’s no longer on the direct road north to Dundee so we don’t often go there.

It does, though, have a 1930s garage, now Ladybank Tyres:-

It’s the stepped roofline that speaks for Deco:-

Apart from the different-sized doors there’s also a nice symmetry to it:-