Dundee: unicorns and robots

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North Carr Lightship with HMS Unicorn behind to the left

Our second day in Dundee was as wet and cold as the first. Fortunately, we weren’t planning to go far. Our hotel, the Apex, was right on the old Victoria Dock where our first target for the day, HMS Unicorn, is moored.

Making our way past North Carr, the last remaining Scottish lightship, and Chandlers Lane with the Tay Road Bridge visible at the end, we boarded the Unicorn to be met by the rather buxom lady in the gallery below.

Chandlers Lane
HMS Unicorn
Figurehead
HMS Unicorn
Entrance desk

HMS Unicorn was built for the Royal Navy in the Royal Dockyard at Chatham and launched in 1824.  She is a rare survivor from the days of sail, the sixth oldest ship in the world, and Scotland’s only representative of the sailing navy. On board there are unicorns everywhere, including a list of other Royal Navy ships which have borne the name since the 16th century, and many cannons.

Main deck
Figurehead
List of RN ships named Unicorn
Fear God – honour the King
Main deck
Cannon

It was interesting to see how the ordinary sailors slept and ate (guess who tried out the hammock) and to contrast the officers’ quarters. I was also intrigued by the information about musketry phrases. A flash in the pan and going off half-cocked I knew about, but not sideburns.

Musketry phrases
Sailors’ dining to left, sleeping to right
Hammocks
Hammocks
Hammocks
Sailors’ dining area
Sailors’ dining area
Sailors’ rations
Officers’ dining room

After exploring the Unicorn we made our way along the waterfront to the V&A where we had tickets for the exhibition Hello Robot. We found an intriguing geometric street sculpture about which I can’t find anything online, though the rope running along the wall is part of Stitch in time by Jeremy Cunningham.

Dundee street sculpture
Dundee street sculpture
Stitch in time

We climbed this viewing platform and noticed that the concrete monument next to it was part of the Dundee Women’s Trail – too high to read the plaque from below and too far away to read from the platform! However, with the help of the zoom lens we established it was to commemorate Bella Keyzer, one of the women who took over the jobs of men who were away fighting in World War 2. She became a shipyard welder.

Tayside viewing platform
Bella Keyzer plaque

We passed under the Tay Road Bridge, and detoured onto it for a view of the V&A before arriving at the museum itself. This gallery shows how dreich the weather really was! With the exception of some painted pillars and a glimpse into a bright office it was totally grey.

Tay Road Bridge
Under the bridge
Under the bridge
Pedestrian walkway
Roadway
V&A
V&A Dundee
V&A Dundee
V&A Dundee

Finally, a few shots from Hello Robot itself. In the entrance was this amazing wooden sculpture, Up Sticks. I would find it difficult to paraphrase, so have included the explanation in full.

I also liked this colourful wall of sayings, though I can’t say I agree with all of them.

My favourite item was probably the print Mobile Relationship by Manu Cornet, with which I could definitely identify, and just to prove there were some exhibits that actually looked like robots I’ve included one of those. Overall, the technical stuff interested me much less than the sociological stuff, and I was looking forward much more to the V&A’s next exhibition on Mary Quant which, like so much else, is currently postponed.

Moblie relationship

Having explored the Unicorn and the V&A, and had lunch, we still had quite a bit of wet afternoon left. We went back to the hotel to pick up the car and headed for Broughty Ferry, but I’ll leave that for my next post.

Scotland, UK , , ,

62 Comments »

  1. Love HMS Unicorn, that figurehead is a beauty. The hammock looks fairly comfy, but I’m not sure I would have dared try with that mannequin in the next one. I’m not easily spooked, generally, but those things do make me nervous!

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  3. I think I would definitely like the HMS Unicorn – great figureheads! I’d always been told that sideburns were named after Ambrose Burnside, the American Civil War general, but maybe that story is apocryphal. (Also that tampons got their name from tampions, which plug up gun barrels.) I was initially confused by Hello Robot, because it looked different than the Robots exhibition I saw in London, and then I remembered, duh, that was at the Science Museum, not the V&A, so of course it’s different! It looks like something I would have enjoyed, though like you, I prefer the sociological to the technical.

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  4. A very interesting read Anabel – I always find out such interesting information in your posts and now I know the origin of “sideburns”! It does look a very dreary day but you obviously found a lot to do in spite of the weather.

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  5. Didn’t fancy the hammock then, Anabel. I believe they are very comfortable out in a rough sea 😂
    Having visited HMS Belfast, I don’t think sleeping arrangements for ratings had changed much even by then.

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  7. A fascinating tour, Anabel. I had to look up the meaning of the word “dreich” and it was just as i thought, “Scottish weather at its worst.” 😯 The wall of sayings caught my attention, especially the question, “What if there’s no next big thing?” John looks quite comfortable in the hammock. 🙂

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  9. I’d love to get a better look at the sailor’s diet shot. Up-Sticks appears to be the robotic version of Tinker Toys.

    That cartoon tells the truth. I’ve thought of doing a post about cell phones with lyrics from The Police: “I will turn your face to alabaster – when you find your servant is your master – And you’ll be wrapped around my finger…”

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  10. In a dreich day Up-Sticks was a bonus. Loved the Robot cartoon and have copied it and sent it off to a friend who seems to be permanently attached to his ‘phone – a total slave if you will.

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  11. Hi Anabel – glad you’ve shown us much more around Dundee – loved seeing your ‘trip’ and the views inside … I love visiting exhibitions or sculptures that put my mind to the test … and am glad I’m not the only one to come away wondering about various things. It looks an interesting place to visit … and John obviously needed to rest after all his work the day before! Take care – Hilary

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  12. A very good friend of MrB’s was one of the leading lights behind saving the Unicorn. He fell out with some of the Trustees though and so sadly no longer involved.

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  13. A very interesting post, Anabel. Hard to imagine the “sixth oldest ship in the world…”. I was not aware about unicorns and Scotland until I began reading your blog posts. Did your husband manage to get out of the hammock gracefully? 🙂 Your photos are always very interesting. A great post!

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  14. Never knew that about sideburns either. There was something really flimsy feeling about that particular viewing platform. I was certainly holding on to the banister coming back down, unusual for not being that tall a structure but it certainly felt higher than it was.

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  15. I have been a history nerd since early childhood and one of my favourite tours of a historic site was on board the Unicorn. Back then, it was guided tours only and my family happened to be allocated a guy who was not only knowledgeable but also massively enthusiastic and highly entertaining. It may be a result of that experience but I have much fonder memories of the Unicorn than of its neighbour the Discovery.

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  18. That North Carr Lightship would need some TLC [tender loving care] I should say. To me, it really seems to be worth it.
    Thanks for taking me on a tour of HMS Unicorn. I looked it up on Wikipedia and, to my utter surprise, found out that she was never rigged, but just towed to Dundee, and laid up there as a hulk. What a pity for such a ship! But her sister ship, HMS Trincomalee, can be seen fully rigged in Hartlepool, I found out. I need to go there.
    I love to read historical naval fiction especially the “Ramage” novels by Dudley Pope, which are set a little earlier in British history – at the times of the Napoleonic Wars.

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  20. I love the musketry phrases and that Up-Sticks sculpture. Some of the sayings on the wall of sayings are so appropriate right now, especially: Technology favors horrible people, and In the future, we’ll all be shopping from jail. I feel like those two especially capture the moment we’re in. I love the mobile relationship poster too. It’s great they’ve preserved that old sailing ship with all its unicorns. Even though it was a grey day, you managed to find a lot of interesting things to see! 🙂

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  23. A very interesting post. I like the Unicorn figurehead and the officers’ dining room, it looks quite posh. I love the Up Sticks sculpture, it looks amazing, and like the colourful wall of sayings. It reminds me of when I was in my teens, you could buy oblong packets of bubblegum which came with a small sheet of stickers in each pack, I collected loads of them. I had one which said ‘ring ten times’ – without my mum knowing I stuck it on the door frame underneath the front door bell and the postman did! 🙂

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