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. The question remains of what attendances the main hall might have held eg for performances in 1755 of the Beggar's Opera. Readers are invited to point us to any better sources of evidence,  But we have to assume the following is plausible:

Municipal assembly rooms of that era in Scottish burghs—comparable to Aberdeen’s Town House hall or Edinburgh’s Assembly Rooms (smaller rooms, not the grand 18th-century purpose-built halls)—typically accommodated 300–500 people for seated events, depending on whether benches or temporary tiered seating were used. For theatre-style arrangements, the number might have been closer to 350–400 to allow space for a stage area and circulation.

The population of Dundee at that time was reckoned to be around 12,000.