Publication Account

Date 1988

Event ID 1018285

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Publication Account

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1018285

Designed by Samuel Bell in 1776, its classical and elegant structure was a sign of the growing prosperity of the Dundee tradesmen. Although some of the trades had possessed a hall in the Cowgate,12 the traditional meeting place of the crafts had been in the old Greyfriars gardens (the Howff) after 1564. Each of the trades possessed a room in the new Trades Hall in which to conduct their business. The cordiners craft commissioned Methven (the work was completed by H Harwood) to decorate their walls with a painting of their St Crispin procession, an annual event led by one of their number who represented their patron, Saint Crispin. This frieze is now in the City Art Gallery and Museum and is of interest not only as one of the few reminders of the Trades Hall, but also for the clear impression it gives of Dundee from the north-west at the turn of the 18th/19th centuries. The Trades Hall is now demolished.

Information from ‘Historic Dundee: The Archaeological Implications of Development’ (1988).