One of Dundee’s best-loved former pubs, the Bread, is to be given a new role as a mock “scenes-of-crime” setting for forensic science students.
Also formerly known as the Breadalbane Arms or The Bothy, it is to be renovated by Abertay University to create a realistic pub setting for the students to investigate murders, stabbings, robberies and break-ins, among other possible crimes.
The building, on Constitution Road, was bought by Abertay last year from previous owners Trust Inns.
The pub, which sits in the middle of the university campus, is a long-established name and was popular with students and music lovers from its heyday in the late 1960s and 70s.
Following a major fire in the 1980s, the building was extensively refurbished, with flats being created on the upper floors which formerly housed The Bothy music venue. But the pub never regained its previous popularity, although it returned to being a regular music venue in the past decade.
An extension built at the rear of the pub following the fire has fallen into disrepair and is being demolished as part of Abertay’s extension plans at its Bell Street car park.
A spokesman for Abertay University said, “We are only demolishing the 1980s extension behind the old pub because it’s in very poor condition. The bar area on the ground floor of the old building will be retained and converted into a scenes-of-crime facility for our forensic sciences students, where the aftermath of crimes will be simulated to enable our students to hone their skills in a realistic pub setting.
“This new facility will join the simulations of a bedsit and a bank we already have in the Kydd Building. The privately-owned properties on the upper floors of the old building will not be affected,” said the spokesman.