Opera Scotland

Town House, Dundee Dundee

The Town House was built to the design of William Adam and opened in 1734.  The ground floor arcade contained shops, and was known as the 'Pillars' - this feature only became an important element in the city's 'folk memory' in the nineteenth century, when all the other colonnades that characterised the medieval town centre had been removed. The building was demolished almost exactly two hundred years later to make way for the City Square in front of the newly constructed Caird Hall.  In common with its predecessor, the Tolbooth, the building was designed for a variety of functions and held the town jail.  It also incorporated material recycled from the Tolbooth, which had been built after the Reformation, it is thought largely using masonry from the old Greyfriars monastery in Dundee and massive roof timbers from Lindores Abbey across the river. Until the late eighteenth century the Town House remained the main location for concerts and theatrical entertainments in the town.