1815 - 1817 Scroll Book - Nine Incorporated Trades of Dundee

Price said to have been offered for
The Braes in their natural state 500: 0:0
Amounting in all to 3254: 17: 2
Or each Stance 650:19:5
(Using the RPI this equates to £225,077 in 2007)
To his sum remains to be added the expence of building walls to divide the lots of terraces to
support the earth, conduits &c, &c. we are therefore below the truth when we say that the
whole will cost four thousand pounds before the lots are complete for building stances.
At a time when property was at its highest rate, Messers Alison and Davidson paid only £1800
for the two acres above the Braes, with every advantage of situation, access and prospect, and
only £750 with a small few duty has been paid at the east end of the Toun, for a beautiful piece
of ground consisting of about five acres. The loss therefore attending this speculation will in
all probability be immense. And in squandering of this money cannot be too strongly
reprobated when it is considered that the sum has been taken out of the funds specially
appropriated to the support of the decayed burgesses of Dundee.
It has been alleged that the improvement would be ornamental to the Toun. This we cannot
agree to. If the Braes had been laid out in shrubbery, intersected with neat walls and thrown
open for the recreation of the public it might have been both useful and ornamental, but we do
not see that prospect down chimney vents can claim alliance either with utility or beauty. It
has also been said that the improvement would employ the labouring poor of Dundee in the
present scarcity of employment. Had this been the reason for embarking on the scheme would
the building of the Wall have been given to a Perthshire Contractor and to Mylnefield
Builders? Or would the Magistrates have relinquished that very part of the work which
promised to employ more common labourers than the building of the Wall, namely the filling
up?
In conclusion your Committee venture to assert, that if the Magistrates of Dundee had kept
faith with the Guildry, if the Dean of Guild elected by the Incorporation had sat at the Council
table agreeably to the resolution of the 9 th August 1815 – this absurd and expensive project
would never have been entered into; the Magistrates would have been saved from disgrace,
and the property of he Toun from waste.
This Report being much approved of by the Guildry, Mr Roberts moved Captain Blair
seconded and the Meeting unanimously passed the following Resolutions:
First. That the refusal of the Magistrates to communicate to the Guildry the necessary
information regarding the origin, object and utility of the works at present carrying on at the
Sea Braes is highly to be reprehended.
Second. That from the Report which has now been read, it would appear that the enclosing
and embanking this piece of ground would cost nearly £4,000 to be defrayed out of the funds
of the Hospital without any probable chance of realising even one half of this sum by the sale
of it when completed, and:
Third. It being the bounden duty of the Guildry Incorporation to watch over the interests of
the Toun, they therefore hold the Magistrates of Dundee responsible for whatever loss the
funds of the Hospital may sustain in consequence of the more improvident speculation; and
that the Clerk of the Guildry be instructed immediately to intimate a Protest to this effect,
against the Magistrates and Toun Council of Dundee individually.
Mr William Ellet moved that the thanks of the Meeting should be given to Messers William
Roberts, Edward Baxter and Captain Blair, the Committee, for their great perseverance in
obtaining information and the ability with which they had drawn up the Report.
This was passed with loud applause.
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