Queen Mary connection?

“I was interested to see the photograph sent in by Dr Kenneth Baxter of the Overgate in Dundee looking towards the High Street, which appeared in the column on Friday,” emails Jamie Potton of Sevenoaks in Kent, who sent in the photograph below.

“I literally stumbled across a print on the floor of a Tunbridge Wells charity shop a couple of weeks ago, depicting (roughly) the view from the High Street, looking back towards the Overgate. As Kenneth notes, most buildings here have been lost. I count perhaps only three in my picture which still remain – on the right side (north side of the High Street), and St Mary’s Tower.

“I haven’t removed it from the frame, but it seems to have been cut from a book and mounted. On the reverse, a type-written label reads: ‘Label verso: per M. F. Hogan showing the lodging of Queen Mary and General Monck and the Old Union Hall.’ I haven’t been able to identify its artist, M. F. Hogan, the source of the picture, or its date, beyond the period the Union Hall stood from 1783-1876.

“What puzzles me most, however, is the description ‘lodging of Queen Mary’, which I have never seen used. This presumably refers to the building with the round tower, where in 1651, Anne, Duchess of Monmouth, was born, and General George Monck stayed during his barbaric sacking of the town. It was a substantial burgher mansion.

“A glance through Furgol’s 1988 The Scottish Itinerary Of Mary Queen Of Scots (available online) lists only four brief visits to Dundee, on September 20 1561, November 12 1562, September 8-9 1564, and September 13-14 1565 – six nights in total – and notes that ‘the places associated with her in Perth, Dundee and Cupar remain unknown’. This might be out of date, however.

“Was the artist aware of some history now lost, or was this just myth? Does a Craigie reader have any clues to this picture, or the other unidentified places Mary stayed in the region?

“The picture was worth it for opening up a mystery, if not the artistry!”