The distinctly different tones of these two tenements in Dundee’s Rosefield Street are a reminder of the dark days of the second world war and the impact of the Nazi’s bombing raids on Britain.
While the city escaped the attentions of the Luftwaffe relatively unscathed, some bombs did fall and the lighter colour and smoother stonework of these two residential blocks – numbers 17 and 19 on the east side of the street – reveal exactly where they caused destruction and death.
In a single raid on the night of November 5, 1940, eight bombs fell on Dundee, one of them destroying 19 Rosefield Street and damaging its neighbour. Miraculously, only one person – 64-year-old Mary Ann Laing – died in the explosion and subsequent collapse of the sturdy four-storey building.
The other bombs fell on Farington Terrace; the gardens of Fernbrae Nursing Home; a home in Briarwood Terrace; a home at the junction of Marchfield Road and Middlebank Crescent; the back courtyard at 258 Blackness Road; a power station on Forest Park Place – close to Rosefield Street – and in Queen Victoria Works on nearby Brook Street. It is believed there were two other deaths.
It is thought that the raid may have been intended for the Tay Rail Bridge and the bombers overshot their target.
The rubble later cleared, the blocks at 17 and 19 Rosefield Street were subsequently rebuilt.
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