V&A Dundee's layered walls curving down to the Tay, with the hills across the water.

The guide

Dundee. Dundee guide

The V&A on the Tay, Scott's ship Discovery, jute mills, comics and the seaside at Broughty Ferry.

A Hidden Scotland guideV&A Dundee's layered walls curving down to the Tay, with the hills across the water.

The four parts of Dundee

A map of Dundee in relief, with its towns and villages and its four parts

Dundee sits on the north shore of the Firth of Tay, looking across a wide, bright estuary to the hills of Fife, and it's a city that has fallen back in love with its river. Two long bridges carry the road and the railway over the water, and the waterfront has been opened up and rebuilt. The ribbed walls of V&A Dundee lean out over the Tay, and beside them stand the three masts of RRS Discovery, home again in the city that built her. Above it all rises the Law, the old volcanic hill whose summit takes in the whole sweep of the river.

The V&A, Discovery Point and Slessor Gardens

The waterfront and the V&A

Dundee's rebuilt waterfront is where most visits begin, with the station a few steps from Kengo Kuma's V&A and Captain Scott's ship Discovery, built in the city, berthed beside it. It's a lovely place to walk, with the wide Tay in front of you and the hills of Fife across the water.

The tiered, ribbed concrete walls of a modern museum building curve toward a domed glasshouse and a ship's mast visible along the waterfront.

A tall ship with rigged masts sits in dry dock beside a wave-patterned modern building, a wooden walkway with railings leading toward it.

Looking through a dark tunnel of tiered concrete cladding toward a bright quayside with railings and a river beyond.

City Square, the High Street and Albert Square

The city centre

Up from the river, the centre gathers round the High Street and City Square, where Desperate Dan and Minnie the Minx stand in bronze in front of the old DC Thomson offices. The McManus fills a Gothic memorial to Prince Albert, and the Howff, the old town graveyard, is crowded with carved stones.

A gothic sandstone building with a tall spire and twin turrets stands behind a paved forecourt, clipped conifers flanking a curved stone stairway.

Table tombs and headstones fill a churchyard, a domed clock tower and cathedral spire visible above the trees beyond.

A pedestrianised street with painted road markings and timber planters runs between tenement buildings and shopfronts under an overcast sky.

The Perth Road, Magdalen Green and Balgay

The West End

The West End is the city's Victorian quarter, with the university, the Dundee Rep and the DCA, and a long run of independent cafés and shops along the Perth Road. Cobbled Strawberry Bank drops down to Magdalen Green, and up on Balgay Hill the Mills Observatory was Britain's first built for the public.

A narrow cobbled lane descends steeply between stone buildings towards a distant firth and hills.

A narrow cobbled lane climbs between stone walls, trees with early autumn colour arching overhead.

A sandstone tenement building with multiple chimney stacks overlooks a cobbled courtyard from a railed platform above.

Broughty Ferry and Barnhill

Broughty Ferry

A few miles east, Broughty Ferry was once a fishing village where the jute barons built their villas. Its castle of 1490 guards the mouth of the Tay, a long sandy beach runs east from it past the dunes, and Brook Street is lined with pubs, cafés and independent shops.

A stone tower with battlements stands on a small tidal promontory between two harbour walls, calm water reflecting the sky around it.

A wooden boardwalk with rope railings leads through dune grass onto a wide sandy beach beside calm sea.

A pebble beach curves along calm water toward a distant pier and town, a moored sailing boat and clouds filling the sky.

A narrow cobbled lane descends between stone buildings towards a distant firth, a lamp post standing partway down.

In their words

“I love the fact that we all just want Dundee to be moving in the right direction. It’s a good place to be!”

Harris McNeill
Chef and owner of Eastfield, a café at the top of the Perth Road

Read it in Eastfield, Dundee, Issue 9

Best known for.

Dundee was once said to run on jute, jam and journalism. Its mills spun jute for sacks and carpet backing that went all over the world, the Keiller family made its name with marmalade here, and DC Thomson launched the Dandy and the Beano from the city in the 1930s. Its shipyards built RRS Discovery for Captain Scott's first Antarctic expedition. Today Dundee is just as well known for design and for computer games, as Lemmings was dreamed up here. In 2014 it became the UK's first UNESCO City of Design, and in 2018 V&A Dundee opened as the first V&A museum outside London.

More about Dundee

It's a compact city and an easy one to walk. From the station it's only a few minutes to the McManus, the Gothic art gallery and museum, and to the Howff, the old graveyard where the town's trades once met. Along the Nethergate are galleries and the cinemas of Dundee Contemporary Arts. Further west, past the university, Perth Road runs on among cafés and bookshops, and the cobbled lanes of the West End drop down to Magdalen Green by the water. With two universities and plenty of students, there's always something on in the evenings.

Four miles east, Broughty Ferry is the city's seaside. It was a fishing village before the jute barons built their villas on the slopes above it, and today its main street is lined with independent shops, cafés and bars. A castle stands on the point, and beyond it a long sandy beach runs east beside the dunes. North of the city the land rises through farmland towards the Sidlaw Hills, with an Iron Age passage in the fields at Tealing and a wood-fired sauna beside a loch at Kingennie. Both are a short drive from the city centre.

What would you like to look at?

A tall ship's bow rises in dry dock, rigged masts stretching overhead beside a wave-patterned modern building.

See and doThe V&A, Captain Scott's ship and the McManus

A green-fronted corner pub with arched windows stands beneath a tenement building, tables and chairs set out on the pavement beside young trees.

Eat, drink and shopBrunch, street food and bars by the river

A rendered stone tower castle with battlements and a flagpole rises behind a fortified curtain wall beside water.

History and storiesWhalers, jute mills, comics and the Discovery

A modern museum building's tiered concrete cladding curves overhead to frame a glass upper floor and a still water pool below.

ItinerariesDays we have walked, stop by stop

A rail bridge spanning wide water is framed through a small round window, the dark interior of a vehicle visible around the edges.

Getting hereThe trains, the bridges and the buses

A stone tower with battlements stands on a small tidal promontory between two harbour walls, calm water and pale evening sky around it.

What is on in DundeeSomething new from the city every day

What is on in Dundee

Friday the 16th of October.

Sunrise 07:46, sunset 18:08.

Things you might not know.

The Beano first appeared on 30 July 1938, published in Dundee by DC Thomson with a worried ostrich called Big Eggo on the cover, and at its peak it sold nearly two million copies a week.

From The Beano Appears on Shelves, 30 July 1938

A sandstone courtyard building with an external iron staircase and arched doorways overlooks a cobbled yard set with wooden benches and a recycling bin.

Dundee's mills and factories once employed more than 50,000 people, in a city famous for its linen, sail-cloth and jute.

From Knit Power

The first known photographs of Antarctica were taken on the Dundee Whaling Expedition of 1892, and there is a Dundee Island in the Antarctic to this day.

From A World Beneath the Waves

Looking up at a modern building's tiered concrete cladding as it recedes in ribbed rows toward a pale sky with scattered cloud.

The V&A's layered walls are made from 2,500 precast stone panels, shaped to look like a Scottish cliff face, and the building is heated from 30 boreholes in the ground beneath it.

From Architectural Wonders

A stone obelisk stands among table tombs and headstones in a hillside cemetery, city buildings and a domed tower visible beyond the trees.

The Howff was laid out in 1564 on the site of a Franciscan monastery, and its carved gravestones are said to be the most important collection in Scotland.

From Things to do in Dundee and Angus

The bronze penguins by Angela Hunter on the City Churches wall celebrate Dundee's long link with penguins, and they are dressed up to mark the city's special occasions.

From Things to do in Dundee and Angus

Read about Dundee.

The journalThe Beano Appears on Shelves, 30 July 1938

The journalThings to do in Dundee and Angus

Issue 9Eastfield, Dundee

Issue 5Knit Power

Issue 4Architectural Wonders

Issue 4A World Beneath the Waves

Photograph by Nuria Carmen Suarez Izquierdo via Google