Dundee, High Street, Trades Hall
Exchange (Period Unassigned), Trades Hall (18th Century)
Site Name Dundee, High Street, Trades Hall
Classification Exchange (Period Unassigned), Trades Hall (18th Century)
Alternative Name(s) Trades House
Canmore ID 186008
Site Number NO43SW 386
NGR NO 4038 3030
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/186008
- Council Dundee, City Of
- Parish Dundee (Dundee, City Of)
- Former Region Tayside
- Former District City Of Dundee
- Former County Angus
NMRS REFERENCE:
Dundee, High Street, Trades Hall.
Architect: Samuel Bell. 1776-8
C.Edward (alterations) 1851.
Demolished 1878.
See Historical File (1.12).
(Undated) information in NMRS.
Publication Account (1988)
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).
