Names that signpost gritty stories of people and places through time

In the second day of our series, Gayle Ritchie examines how Dundee’s street names were coined and what they tell us about the lives of our ancestors in the city

Many of Dundee’s street names have interesting origins which can provide tantalising clues to the history of the city.

Couttie’s Wynd, the narrow lane which runs from Nethergate to Whitehall Crescent, takes its name from a 16th Century butcher.

The story goes that the eccentric King James V liked to roam the country in disguise and, on one of his excursions, was saved from being murdered at the hands of robbers by a butcher called Couttie in Glen Ogilvy. Couttie was then given all rights to the wynd as a token of the king’s gratitude.

Beef Can Close, which was off William Lane, between Victoria Road and King Street, was said once to have been a very poor area.

So destitute were the inhabitants, they were forced to pawn their cooking utensils.

They then took the empty cans that had contained salted or processed meat and used them as pots and pans.

Hospital Wynd, at the top of the Hilltown, never boasted a hospital but was granted to the city by the sovereign of the time on condition any rents went towards the upkeep of the hospital, or poorhouse as it was called then.

In St Roque’s Lane, off the Seagate, stood a chapel named after a Frenchman who devoted his life to the plague-stricken.

It was here, outside the old city wall, that Dundee’s plague victims were banished so their infections were less likely to spread.

Bucklemaker’s Wynd, now widened and renamed Victoria Road, owes its name to the buckles made there that once adorned the shoes of the fashionable.

Apparently, the demise of the industry – therefore the demise of the name – was thanks to a former Prince of Wales.

He showed up at a ball in London with shoelaces on his footwear and the shoe buckle industry promptly folded.

Several of Dundee’s lost industries are kept in memory only by the names of streets.

Soapwork Lane and Candle Lane were the location of the works of candlemaker Joseph Sanderson in the early 19th Century.

Sugarhouse Wynd was so-named after the works there, the first manager of which was a Dutchman, Mr Wiedman, whose daughter Sarah was the mother of poet Robert Browning.

Dundee’s rich seafaring history has not been forgotten either.

East and West Whale Lanes took their names from the whaling industry, as did Baffin Street from the infamously inhospitable Baffin Bay, known and unloved by the men of the whaling fleets.

Strangely, in a city with strong connections with the textile industry, there is no Jute Street, although there is a Cotton Road.

The thoroughfare known as the Scourin’ Burn was renamed in favour of the “posher” Brook Street to move away from any slum connotations, with poor folk doing their washing in the stream.

A popular traditional is to name streets after people.

The Maxwelltown area belonged to the Maxwell family of Tealing and streets in the district are given the Christian names of members of that family – Ann, Eliza, George, Alexander, Elizabeth and William.

Crichton Street is after famous surgeon John Crichton, whose house was acquired when the street was laid out on condition it was named after him.

Caird Avenue, Ogilvie Street, Maitland Street and Malcolm Street are all taken from Dundee’s jute barons.

The city’s busiest shopping centre, the Overgate was known as Argyllsgait in earlier times when it led from the old Marketgait out into the country past a mansion called Argyll’s Lodging. The name changed to Overgate, “the upper way” to the West Port, Hawkhill then Perth.

In 2012, the stretch between West Port roundabout and Lidl supermarket car park became Argyllgait as a nod to the past.

The Wellgate Centre, which is built on the site of the old Wellgait, is so named because it was the way or street leading to the Lady Well dedicated to the city’s patron saint, St Mary, Our Lady, the mother of Christ.

There was a Wellgait Port in the 17th Century, possibly erected to secure Wellgait and provide a barrier to those living on Rotten Row – now known as Hilltown – who were reputed to have been a source of “annoyance” to the inhabitants of Dundee.

Rotten Row was actually outside the border of 17th Century Dundee and was chiefly occupied by bonnet makers.

The area was a barony – a small sub-division similar to a county – in its own right.

The main road from Dundee to Forfar ran through the area.

Having been renamed the Barony of Hilltown after extending further north up the hill, the area was purchased from one of Dundee’s lairds in 1697 and became part of the city.

There are a few places named Rotten Row in the UK and it is thought the name may derive from the Saxon word “rot” meaning “pleasant and cheerful”, rather than the derogatory connotations it throws up today.

Meanwhile, the name Downfield has nothing to do with any meadow on a gradient.

A new village was founded in 1835 on land once owned by a poultry farmer, John Wishart, who dealt in feathers and down from his birds.

He rejected the idea of calling the village Wishartfield to perpetuate his own name.

He considered Featherfield before finally settling on Downfield.

Ardler street names have been inspired by famous golf courses – there’s Gleneagles Road, Turnberry Avenue and Troon Avenue.

“There are a few places named Rotten Row in the UK and it is thought their name may derive from the Saxon word ‘rot’ meaning ‘pleasant’

Victoria Road, seen in 1968, was once known as Bucklemaker Wynd after the buckles that were the fashion.