View from South-East.

Description View from South-East.

Date 22/4/1980

Catalogue Number AN 4324

Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images

Copies SC 787435

Scope and Content Upper Dens Works, Princes Street, Dundee, from south-east In 1833 the company, by now known as the Baxter Brothers, built a mill in the Upper Dens for the spinning of flax. This is the building to the far left, which is ten bays in width. Next to this is the three-bayed engine house, which created the steam power required for spinning, and which adjoins the extension dating to 1850. The original building to the left was heightened by two storeys, and a second engine was added at the same date. Both the buildings were iron-framed, and the original mill was the first in Dundee to be entirely constructed of fireproof material. According to Peter Carmichael (d.1891), engineer-manager for the Baxter Brothers, one reason Dundee was successful as a centre of linen manufacture was due to 'the convenience of the port for getting supplies of raw material from the Baltic Provinces and for sending out the manufactured linens to the various markets'. The founder of the Baxters company, William Baxter (1766-1854), opened his first mill for spinning flax in 1822 in Lower Dens, Dundee. During the 19th century the company added other buildings to the complex, becoming the biggest manufacturers of linen in the world around 1840. They maintained this position for another 50 years. Due to the demise of the textile trade in Dundee many of the buildings were demolished in the 1980s. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

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