Stobsmuir Ponds (home to the resident swans which give the ponds their local name of “Swannie Ponds”
Stobsmuir’s claim to fame was that its ponds for a time during the nineteenth century acted as a trunk mains for the city’s water supply; the name Stobswell probably reflects an earlier hydraulic function. Not surprisingly the Stobsmuir water was highly unsatisfactory; it was only with the appointment in the 1870s of a qualified water engineer, and the construction of proper reservoirs at Clatto and Lintrathen, that Dundonians had a decent water–supply.
The ‘Swannie Ponds’ as they were known to the children of the locality are still used by them for ‘messing about in boats’; but open–air ice–skating belongs to those far–off days when we had regular seasons and not just a series of arbitrary weather–fronts.
Source: ‘Dundee Names, People and Places’ – David Dorward