A series of black and white murals celebrating life in Lochee over the years grace the walls of the town’s junior football club. Depicting scenes from the past and local sporting legends, the pictures include a steam train and tram, local street scenes – including the famous Cox’s Stack – and traditional tenement blocks.
While Lochee is now part of Dundee, up until the 19th century it was an independent town, established as a community of mainly weavers’ cottages that was transformed by the linen and jute industries, most notably the vast Camperdown Works, built by Cox Brothers in 1864. James Cox set himself up as a linen merchant in the 18th century before forming a partnership with his brothers William and George. The trio moved into jute in the 1840s, a product the city became famous for and, at its peak, Camperdown Works, which employed over 5,000 people and used the most modern production methods, was the largest jute factory in the world. Lochee grew into a company town, with two railway stations and its own police force, fire service, schools, swimming pool and library, washhouse and several churches.
The murals run along the wall of Thomson Park, home of Lochee United Junior Football Club (118 Liff Road Dundee). Funded by Lochee Regeneration Fund and commissioned by Save Our High Street Lochee, they are the work of graffiti artist Syke (Symon Mathieson) and were painted in 2018-19.
Camperdown Works closed in 1981 and while some parts of the complex were demolished, others survive, converted into flats and apartments. The 282 foot high brick chimney known as Cox’s Stack, built in 1865/66, still stands. It now towers rather sadly over a retail park and languishes on the Buildings at Risk register, which describes it as the ‘best industrial chimney in Scotland’.
If you have enjoyed this post, and others on the site, you might like to buy me a coffee which helps support the site and funds new content… Or visit my Kofi page.
You might also enjoy my new book, Abandoned Dundee, a fully illustrated guide to some of the more interesting and prominent abandoned and derelict buildings and sites in Dundee, available in paperback or as an ebook from Amazon.
Secret Scotland 