2d. Train Fare Forces Return to the City

Drumclog sits above the road in Wormit, looking over to Dundee and west up the river – an ideal spot for a house in 1895 (and it still is). Its first owner was Rev. Robert Howie Wyllie, the popular and hard-working minister of the Hawkhill U. P. Church in Dundee. From the time he was called to Dundee in 1889 he had stayed in the pleasant surroundings of Westpark Road on the Perth Road, but he joined an ever-growing movement of the middle and professional classes to Wormit. He initially rented a house in Birkhill Avenue but within the year had moved into Drumclog.

But being a minister means having commitments to your congregation, and it was the congregation who put an end to his rural residence. They objected to having to pay 2d. for the train fare to come to see their minister, so Rev. Wyllie had to return to Dundee and took up residence in Blackness Road. He may well have had thoughts of returning to Drumclog as he didn’t sell the house when he returned to the city. Unfortunately, ill health took its toll and he ended his days at his home in Blackness Road. Drumclog was bought by its sitting tenant, James Ogilvy Adams, who renamed it Abbotsford.