Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
New book details stories and secrets behind Dundee’s last surviving former jute mills
AT the height of Dundee’s jute trade, 150 mills stood proudly around the city.
Now, around 30 remain and a new book, If These Wa’s Cuid Talk, hopes to tell the stories and secrets behind the buildings that are still here long after the industry left.
Since 2014, Alison Carrie has been exploring and researching the history behind Dundee’s jute mills.
After moving to Dundee, the Kirriemuir native began daily walks around the area and quickly noticed the grand buildings that seemed to be clustered together throughout the city.
Intrigued by the architecture and history of these magnificent structures, Alison began her research which would end up with her writing her own book telling the tales from behind the walls.
The 36-year-old said: “My book started by complete accident, you could say I am an accidental author.
“After moving to Dundee and being unemployed, I decided to get out and about for walks to clear my anxieties and get out the house.
“That’s when I began noticing these grand buildings around and I just wanted to know more about them.
“I spent a year or so researching the history of jute mills and the buildings that were still standing before I became a volunteer at Verdant Works, which gave me a real understanding of how the machinery worked and what a job in the mills was like.”
As she delved deeper into their history, Alison began finding out just how important the logistics of the sites were and why the seemingly scattered mills were built in such close proximity to each other.
Alison added: “The machinery was vast and what is really interesting about the mills in Dundee is that they were designed by engineers rather than architects.
“The buildings themselves were designed to fit around the machinery that they contained rather than the machinery fitting inside the buildings’ design.
“As I began researching, it was interesting to me as to the amount of mills there were in Dundee and how they all connected, such as the Dens Mills which are like a network of mills together.
“While it looks as though they are sort of scattered around the city now, they were actually built in these clusters so that they were in close proximity to burns which flowed through the city.
“To operate the steam engines they needed access to fresh water and while you might expect them to have been located closer to the waterfront, they couldn’t use salt water in the engines.”
It was thanks to Dundee’s engineering that upgrades were available to the mills with technology used in the city’s shipbuilding being transformed for use inside the jute manufacturers.
“Dundee has always been fantastic at manufacturing and the engineers in the city actually used their own technology in the mills,” Alison said.
“As they began upgrading from the beam engines which you can see in Verdant Works, they decided to begin using the same steam engines that were found in the ships which were built in the city as they were able to be put into smaller spaces whilst being more powerful.
“It may actually be because of this great engineering ability that there was only one recorded boiler explosion in any of Dundee’s mills.
“There is of course a lot of accidents and deaths that occurred in mills, though, which I do go into in the book.”
It was at Dundee’s infamous Coffin Mill that the only recorded explosion took place in the late 1890s.
Logie Works, located on Brook Street, also has a history of paranormal sightings with many locals believing they have witnessed a spooky white lady at the site, which is now flats.
Alison said: “In the late 1890s, the end of Coffin Mill, which is how locals know it although it is actually called Logie Works, blew out, killing 19 people.
“If you look from Brook Street you can actually see that the end portion is at a slightly different angle and also is a slightly different sandstone to the rest of the building, which is where the boiler explosion took place.
“The old footbridge was said to have been left dangling and the blast threw stone work through