Clock Tower

After Church, we needed to call into The Stack Retail Centre to get my Father's Day present - some photo frames. It was a dull, drizzly day, much as it has been over the weekend. This impressive Clock Tower caught my eye. It was part of the old Camperdown Works, one of the most famous Jute sites in Britain.

One of the most significant developments on the site was the High Mill, which author Mark Watson argued was one of the finest textile mills in Victorian Scotland. It was built in three stages from 1857 and included this 100 foot clock tower. By 1878 the works had its own railway branch, made its own machinery and employed 4,500 workers, a total which had risen to 5,000 by 1900.

The textile industry was one of Dundee’s main employers and Dundee was also a whaling port with a ready supply of whale oil that was used to process the raw jute. The mechanical process to spin raw jute fibre was first developed in Dundee.

A foundry and stables, which could hold up to thirty horses, were added in the 1860s. Also on the site was a half-time school which was built in 1884 and closed in 1896. Other buildings included warehouses, a small fire-station and a three-bay shed for railway engines using the works' branchline, which joined the nearby Dundee and Newtyle Railway.

A few yards away from the Clock Tower stands Cox's Stack, seen here in an earlier Blip.