Month: November 2021

City Scene 2021

Posted on | by Neale Elder

2020-2021 issue (still in stock)

Contents

  • Comment – from the Chairman
  • COVID – a Year in Pictures
  • Dundee: Vision for 2040 – the Trust’s aspirations for the City
  • The 20-Minute Neighbourhood – the possible merits of this sustainable policy
  • Dundee Port – Adapting to the Future
  • The Case for Wider Boundaries – a view on expansion of the City’s administrative area
  • The Pioneering History of Public Art in Dundee
  • The East Mill – Scotland’s first successful steam powered flax mill
  • Civic Trust Student Awards – the Trust’s first student awards, in 2020 and 2021
  • DC Thomson Buildings – the impressive built estate of the City’s main publisher
  • Dundee’s Cold War – Royal Observer Corps
  • Dundee’s Cold War – The Maps
  • Dundee’s Cold War – Royal Naval Reserve

HMS Unicorn and the Dawn of Modern Naval Architecture

Posted on | by Neale Elder

The second of Dundee Civic Trust’s popular series of winter evening talks will take place on Thursday 18 November 2021 at our usual venue of the Dundee Art Society gallery, 17 Roseangle.

HMS Unicorn is well-known to Dundonians as the old ‘wooden wall’ in Dundee docks but her true international importance is still very little understood.  She is the oldest British-built ship still afloat but, far more importantly, the ship also illustrates an extraordinary story of the dawn of marine engineering which cannot be seen anywhere else in the world.

Unicorn is the only survivor of the very first system of shipbuilding to integrate iron and wood structurally within a ship’s hull, a system invented by Sir Robert Seppings who can be thought of as the Royal Navy’s ‘Brunel’.

Roderick Stewart has been associated with Unicorn his entire life and will describe the ship’s design background as a warship and explain her important place in the history of marine engineering and naval architecture.