Dust in 3C 324

The results of a deep submillimetre observation using SCUBA of the powerful radio galaxy 3C 324, at redshift z = 1.206, are presented. At 850 mu m, emission from the location of the host radio galaxy is marginally detected at the 4.2 sigma level, 3.01 +/- 0.72 mJy, but there is no detection of emission at 450 sigma m to a 3 sigma limit of 21 mJy. A new 32-GHz radio observation using the Effelsberg 100-m telescope confirms that the submillimetre signal is not associated with synchrotron emission. These observations indicate that both the mass of warm dust within 3C 324 and the star formation rate lie up to an order of magnitude below the values recently determined for radio galaxies at z similar to 3-4. The results are compared with dust masses and star formation rates derived in other ways for 3C 324.