Dundee's West End – The DCA, the Observatory and the Law
A day on foot, from Dundee station and back.
The route
Dundee's West End is the city at its most lived-in, with Victorian tenements, the art school, lanes down to the river and the shops and old pubs of the Perth Road.
A day on foot through it ends on the view everyone in Dundee knows. It starts at the DCA on the Nethergate, the city's home for art and film. The Perth Road leads west to the Sinderins, where Strawberry Bank drops down to Magdalen Green and the old bandstand looks out at the Tay Rail Bridge running away to Fife. The afternoon climbs into the woods of Balgay Hill to the Mills Observatory at the top. Then it's across the city and up the Law, the old volcanic hill in the middle of Dundee, to watch the sun go down. It's about 5.5 miles, with two hills to climb.
The day
West End
A day on foot through Dundee's West End, from the DCA on the Nethergate along the Perth Road and down Strawberry Bank to Magdalen Green and the river. The afternoon climbs through the woods of Balgay to the Mills Observatory, then crosses the city to the top of the Law for the sunset. It starts and ends at the station, about 5.5 miles with two hills.
Dundee Contemporary Arts
An attraction
It's a 6-minute walk west from the station to the Nethergate and Dundee Contemporary Arts, the city's home for art and film since 1999. Its two galleries are free and show contemporary artists from Scotland and around the world, in three seasons of exhibitions a year. There's a two-screen cinema too, and a shop selling prints made in the building's own print studio. Jute, the café bar, is a good place for a coffee before the walk west.
About 5 min on foot
The Perth Road
Five minutes on west from the DCA, past the University of Dundee, the Nethergate becomes the Perth Road. This is the West End's own street, with the art school of Duncan of Jordanstone near its start and independent shops, cafés and old pubs all the way along. At Seabraes, on the river side, a small garden with a little bandstand looks out over the Tay. From here the street runs on west, past its bars and cafés, to the Sinderins.
17 min on foot
Strawberry Bank
An attraction
It's a 17-minute walk on west along the Perth Road, through the Sinderins, the West End's crossroads, to Strawberry Bank. At the Sinderins, Fisher & Donaldson at number 300 has a bakery counter and a sit-in café for lunch. Across the road, the Speedwell Bar, an Edwardian pub of 1903 that locals call Mennie's, keeps its mahogany bar and more than a hundred malts. Just beyond, the steep cobbled lane, sometimes called the prettiest street in Dundee, drops down towards the river.
4 min on foot
Magdalen Green
It's a 4-minute walk down the rest of the lane and east along Magdalen Yard Road to Magdalen Green, the oldest public park in Dundee. Its cast-iron bandstand dates from 1890, and the painter James McIntosh Patrick, who lived on Magdalen Yard Road for nearly sixty years, painted it and the view beyond. That view is the Tay Rail Bridge, running two miles across the river to Fife, with the stumps of the first bridge beside it, the one that fell in the storm of December 1879.
29 min on foot
Mills Observatory
An attraction
It's a 29-minute walk up Shepherd's Loan, Blackness Avenue and the Serpentine Path into the woods of Balgay Park; with a climb of about 125 metres, allow 40. On top of Balgay Hill, the Mills Observatory opened in 1935 as the first in the UK built for the public. It's free, with a Victorian telescope under a papier-mâché dome, and opens from October to March, on weekdays from 4pm and on Saturday evenings. Otherwise the woods are the stop, and three minutes west an iron bridge crosses the gorge to Balgay Cemetery.
About 26 min on foot
Dundee Law
The walk down to Lochee Road and up the Law Steps by Balgay Parish Church takes 26 minutes; with the climb, allow 40. The Law, an old volcanic sill 174 metres high in the middle of the city, carries the war memorial of 1925, with the Tay, both its bridges and Fife below. Stay for the sunset as the memorial's lights come on. Then come down by the summit road with a torch, not the unlit steps and paths, and walk facing the cars, as the road has no pavement.
If it rains
The DCA is free and under a roof, and it can fill a wet day on its own: the galleries, the shop, lunch in Jute and a film in its two-screen cinema. From October to March the Mills Observatory opens on weekdays from 4pm and on Saturday evenings, with its displays under a roof; its small planetarium runs shows only on some Friday evenings, booked ahead by phone. In the wet, keep Strawberry Bank and Magdalen Green to a look on the way past. The Law is no use in low cloud, when there is nothing to see from the top, so on a day like that end with a film at the DCA instead.
Photographs by Isuru Eshan, Fergus Black and maximilian max via Google; Ydam