Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
From ‘Rotten Row’ to one of city’s most famous areas
HILLTOWN folk could be forgiven for having no desire to revert to the street’s previous name, Rotten Row.
The area was a barony – a small subdivision similar to a county – in its own right and situated just outside the border of 17th Century Dundee.
It is thought Rotten Row may derive from the Saxon word “rot” meaning “pleasant and cheerful”, rather than the derogatory connotations it throws up today.
Renamed Barony of Hilltown after extending further north up the hill, the area was purchased from one of Dundee’s lairds in 1697 and officially became part of the city.
Before that, however, there was a “strong rivalry” between the barony and the Burgh of Dundee.
A wall was built leading northwards from the present Wellgate and, at one time, Dundonians were banned from trading with those in the barony.
In the 1870s, the district of Maxwelltown was acquired by the town from the Maxwell of Tealing family and Maxwell arranged new streets be named after his relatives – Ann Street, Eliza Street, George Street, Alexander Street, Elizabeth Street and William Street - all considered part of the wider Hilltown area today.
In one clipping from the Tele in July 1966, an unnamed writer described his memories of Ann Street as a child.
He said: “At the Hilltown end of Ann Street, on its south side, sphinxlike figureheads look down on the passing populace.
“They were there when I trundled my ‘gird’ along the cobbled street nearly 60 years ago.
“The building to which they are affixed was the site of the old Barony windmill, when the west end of Ann Street was an open-air fish market known as Skate Row.”
The intriguing article describes resident Jamie Kerwin as “more than a barber. He was a counsellor, guide and friend. If anyone had a grievance Jamie would take up the matter.”
Mr Kerwin would often open on a
Sunday to help hungover male church-goers smarten up before their service – because they were “too shaky to trust themselves with a cutthroat razor”.
Another archive piece from June 1960 describes the “Craftsmen and Characters of The Old Hilltown”.
The area had been home to independent craftsmen, including a cottage where soft clay pipes were moulded by “the last soft clay pipe maker in Northern Scotland” – a man named Archie Torrance.
The writer also mentions local coalman Sandy Soutar, who chose to wear “white canvas shoes rather than tackety boots” – interesting attire for a coalman, both from a safety and style perspective.
A simple rhyme was recited to any unhappy customer encountered by Sandy, recalled the piece:
When you buy the fish,
You buy the banes.
When you buy the coal,
You buy the stanes.
Other Hilltown hotspots are mentioned, such as a dairy where people would appear, with jugs and flaggons, to “get a penny worth of milk, new fae the coo”.
In more modern times, Hilltown was home to the multis – huge tower blocks housing hundreds of families on 14 floors.
The Alexander Street multis – built in the mid-’60s - were demolished in July 2011.
Four multis remain at the foot of the hill, on Hilltown Terrace – Hilltown Court, Bonnethill Court, Tulloch Court and Dallfield Court.
These days, the Hilltown is a busy thoroughfare, connecting people from the Wellgate Centre up to perhaps the most iconic structure still on “the hull” to this day – the Hilltown Clock.
The ticking heartbeat of the street, it has undergone many restorations but remains largely unchanged since the ’60s.
Today, the Hilltown remains busy with convenience stores, hairdressers, mobile phone repair and other technology stores, charity shops and a post office, among much more.
A far cry from the Hilltown’s humble beginnings as “Rotten Row”.