This is actually a shoot from the week before last as I’m still catching up on processing from my latest trip to Fife, staying in my friend’s comfortable apartment in St Andrews.  It’s just a short hop over the Tay on the bus from St Andrews to Dundee, so it’s a place I’ve visited a few times but the city centre has some great architecture so I always seem to find something new!

The winter sunshine looked great on The Steeple Church and ancient Mercat Cross, just next to where I got off the bus from St Andrews, so the camera was out straight away!  The church is interesting as The Steeple is just part of Dundee City Churches, with Dundee Parish Church, St Mary’s, being located at the eastern end of the same building.

By the Dundee Parish Church end is a fabulous sculpture by Angela Hunter of five penguins waddling along the wall.  Apparently it’s a popular sculpture locally and the penguins often get dressed up to mark local events, but this is something I’ve yet to see in person!

Further along at the other end of the High Street the low winter sun was picking out a lovely old building that I’d not really noticed before.  It’s now an opticians but I guessed that wasn’t it’s original purpose so I asked later in the Dundee Visit Scotland office in City Square and they kindly asked around and discovered it was built as a Clydesdale Bank.  It’s a renaissance style building surmounted by a statue of Britannia flanked by a grumpy looking lion and cornucopia shedding coins (apparently – it’s a bit weathred to tell!).  It’s a listed building and I thought it was a shame it didn’t have a blue plaque with its history on it.

No visit to Dundee would be complete without a look at The McManus.  It’s a fine George Gilbert Scott gothic revival building housing Dundee’s art gallery and museum and it’s well worth a visit.  I’ve photographed it a few times in nice light and at dusk, but I couldn’t resist another shot of the aspect with the impressive curved staircase.

Just opposite The McManus is the DC Thompson Courier Office (home of The Dandy and The Beano!) and alongside this on Meadowside is The Howff, Dundee’s historic burial ground (established 1564) with an interesting collection of old tombstones.

As dusk approached I headed back to The Steeple Church as I’d not got any dusk shots of it.  It’s not floodlit and the streetlamps around it mosty failed to come on unfortunetely, but it still looked nice in the twilight.

To finish off I headed back to City Square (see featured image of Caird Hall, top) where Desperate Dan seemed to be enjoying the break in the wet and windy weather and a reasonably mild winter evening!

You can see all of the images from the shoot in the Scotland Gallery on the website.