The night air was bitterly cold and the darkness impenetrable as the guard kept watch over the Howff from his tower. The only sound was the thud of mysterious footsteps echoing among the gravestones. Aiming his gun into the darkness, the guard fired, scaring the thief away.
This true story of medieval grave robbers who roamed Dundee’s graveyards after dark is just one of many spooky tales told in Dark Dundee and Dark Dundee 2, recently published by a local history organisation of the same name.
The perfect Halloween reading, these books are bound to give readers the creeps as they learn about the city’s dark past – the paranormal encounters, the witch trials, the gruesome murders and the plain bizarre occurrences.
For those interested in social history, there are also sections on notable Dundee “characters”, the city’s whaling history and what passed for healthcare in medieval times (spoiler: it involves chainsaws and chloroform).
A section in Dark Dundee 2 on how people worked in the past also tells the tragic story of a man who accidentally blew himself up with dynamite at a quarry on the Law in 1883.
The unfortunate David Carr had prepared a large section of rock for blasting and had to attempt the blast twice – but on the second attempt, as he was adding some extra dynamite, the left-over explosive from his first try suddenly ignited.
A tragic accident
Colleagues looked on in horror as David was launched 50ft into the air, before falling back down onto the hard rock. His remains, which were unrecognisable, were sent home in a covered casket to his widow in Lochee two hours after the incident.
Incredibly, David’s colleagues who were standing nearby only sustained a few scrapes and went back to work that same afternoon, despite having witnessed a colleague being killed – in those times, compassionate leave did not exist.
“People often have a rose-tinted view of the past, but in reality, life was very harsh and scary for 95% of the population up until very recently,” muses Louise Murphy, co-founder of Dark Dundee.
Dark Dundee
“I think it would really shock people to read about what went on in Dundee, in the very same streets that they walk in today. People often can’t believe just how crazy the city was!
“But these aren’t your typical history books, and we aren’t a typical history group – there are plenty of those out there already that can tell you everything about famous buildings or important people.
“What we’re interested in is social history, the way that ordinary people lived, the little details of their day-to-day life and the emotions they went through. That’s where the ‘dark’ comes from, because when you dig deeper into what went on, you discover that there was a lot of horror. You can’t really have social history without the dark element.”
This rich tapestry of stories, now available to the public, is the result of hours spent poring over obscure antique books, city archives, the British Newspaper Archive and information from Abertay Historical Society and Tay Valley Family History Society.
It all began as a hobby for Louise, 40, and Dark Dundee’s other co-founder Stewart Heaton, 41. The pair have been best friends since their school days at Craigie High School, where they were known as a “double act” as they never left each other’s side.
Throughout their 25-year friendship they shared a love of local history, spending a lot of time browsing antique book shops until they amassed a vast collection of rare books going back to the 1700s.
Humble beginnings
In 2016 they created a blog, Dark Dundee, so that they could share some of the stories about the city’s dark history from the books with other Dundonians.
“It just exploded,” reminisces Stewart. “At the start we only had around five stories up on the site, but there was so much interest and people started asking whether we would do tours of all these sites that the stories mentioned.
“To begin with we weren’t sure, as this wasn’t something we’d ever done, or thought of doing, before. But we saw that there was a gap in the market and we thought ‘well, why not!”
The very first tour, called Crimes of Passion, happened in February 2016 in association with the Rep Theatre, just before their adaptation for the stage of Agatha Christie’s Witness for the Prosecution.
Taking place not long after Valentine’s Day, Crimes of Passion offered visitors a rather unconventional take on romance.
The 20-strong group were led around the sites of Dundee’s most notorious historical murders that involved elements of love, desire and jealousy, with Louise and Stewart explaining the background behind each case.
Dark tours
“Doing that first tour was terrifying,” laughs Stewart. “We had all these people coming, looking at us with expectation on their faces, and we were so anxious that we weren’t going to be able to fulfil those expectations.
“But in the end the tour was a success. It ran for a few days, and in total around 100 people came. Then, in April 2016 we had our first Dark Dundee: A Dark History tour, which was more about general local history, but still focusing on the dark side.
“We ran that tour for a whole year and in total we had around 2,500 people come through the tours. We realised quite quickly that this was going to become a full-time job for us.”
A career change
It was quite a career change for the pair – Stewart was previously employed at Dundee City Council’s finance department and Louise worked in HR at Dundee University.
Shortly after launching the Dark History tour, both gave up their jobs to focus on Dark Dundee full-time.
Since then they have not only put on tours, but have also been involved in various tourism initiatives, such as collaborations with Discovery Point, talks at the Malmaison Hotel and Hotel Indigo, and a talk at Dundee’s economic summit in 2017.
A dream job
“It still feels so surreal that this is our actual job, I often have to pinch myself,” says Louise. “I never thought I would be doing something like this. We really love what we do and what we’ve achieved.
“We’ve had our old teachers from Craigie High on some of our tours and we often have friends and family telling us that they’re proud of us – but we tell them to be quiet! It can be a little embarrassing when you’re doing something so public in your home town, but people like what we do, so that keeps us going.”
The duo had been working on book ideas for some time, but didn’t get round to making it happen as they were so busy with the tours and all the associated activities.
Book ideas
Then Covid-19 hit and the resulting lockdowns put a stop to most of their work, giving them time to pick up the book ideas again.
Louise and Stewart rolled up their sleeves and collated all their ideas, firstly coming up with themes for the different sections of the books, including murders, workplace accidents, medieval medicine, sieges and riots, supernatural tales and “morbid curiosities” – a miscellaneous assortment of gruesome happenings.
Then they set about finding stories to curate for each section, re-packaging them in a way that is accessible for readers of all ages and backgrounds. Dark Dundee 2 also includes excerpts from archive articles from city newspapers The Courier and the Dundee Evening Telegraph, detailing the city’s dark happenings.
An independent project
The books are self-published, with Louise and Stewart doing everything themselves from start to finish, from idea generation to content writing to design and marketing.
So far over they have sold more than 1,000 copies of Dark Dundee, which was published in April 2020, and are expecting the sequel, Dark Dundee 2, published this October, to also be a success.
“This new book is even darker than the previous one,” adds Louise. “There are sections on incidents which happened when Dundonians were at work and at play, and the ‘morbid curiosities’ section is back.
“I think we’ve done really well with sales from the previous book, considering we’ve done everything ourselves and don’t have a traditional publisher.
“We expect people will like this second book too and will enjoy reading about all the crazy happenings in Dundee.”
For more information on Dark Dundee’s tours and details on how to order the book, visit: www.ddtours.co.uk
