Newport-on-Tay

A historical perspective, drawn from the Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland: A Survey of Scottish Topography, Statistical, Biographical and Historical, edited by Francis H. Groome and originally published in parts by Thomas C. Jack, Grange Publishing Works, Edinburgh between 1882 and 1885.

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Newport, a small seaport town in Forgan parish, Fife, on the Firth of Tay, 11 miles NNE of Cupar by road, and 1 ½ mile SSE of Dundee by water, with a station on the Tayport and Newport section of the North British railway, 2 ¾ miles W by S of Tayport, and 2 3/8 NE of the southern end of the new Tay Bridge. Consisting of two parts, Easter and Wester Newport, it was constituted, in 1822, by act of parliament, the ferry-station from Fife to Dundee; and presents a pleasant, well-built appearance, with many elegant villas and other private residences, arranged in terraces on the slopes descending to the firth. It commands a brilliant view of Dundee and a great extent of the Tay's basin; and is a favourite summer resort of families from Dundee and other places, having at the same time become the permanent abode of not a few professional and business men. As a creek of Dundee, it carries on some commerce, in exporting agricultural produce, and importing lime and coal; and has a post office under Dundee, with money order, savings' bank, and telegraph departments, an hotel, a fine ferry harbour a gaswork, an Established church, a Free church, a U.P. church, a Congregational church, a public school, a Young Men's Christian Association, and the Blyth Memorial Public Hall, erected at a cost of £4000. Formed immediately subsequent to 1822, after designs by Telford, the ferry harbour is a splendid structure, 350 feet long and 60 wide. It projects into a depth of 5 feet at low water of spring tides; has on each side a carriage-way; possesses most convenient adaptations for the use of double or twin steamboats; and, from the time of its completion, has served for punctual communication with Dundee many times a day. The Established church was built as a chapel of ease in 1871 at a cost of £1350. It contains 450 sittings; and in 1878 was raised to quoad sacra status. The U.P. church, built in 1881 at a cost of over £2000, is a cruciform Gothic edifice, with 400 sittings and a spire 80 feet high. Pop. of q. s. parish (1881) 1775; of town (1841) 260, (1871) 1507, (1881) 2311, of whom 1439 were females. Houses (1881) 452 inhabited, 61 vacant, 7 building.—Ord. Sur., sh. 49, 1865.

An accompanying 19th C. Ordnance Survey map is available, or use the map tab to the right of this page.

Note: This text has been made available using a process of scanning and optical character recognition. Despite manual checking, some typographical errors may remain. Please remember this description dates from the 1880s; names may have changed, administrative divisions will certainly be different and there are known to be occasional errors of fact in the original text, which we have not corrected because we wish to maintain its integrity. This information is provided subject to our standard disclaimer

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