Forgan, a parish in the N of Fife, on the Firth of Tay, containing the post-town of Newport and the village of Woodhaven, the former 11 miles NNE of Cupar and 1½ mile SSE of Dundee (by steam ferry). It is bounded NW by the Firth of Tay, E by Ferryporton-Craig and Leuchars, S by Leuchars, Logie, and Kilmany, and W by Balmerino. Its utmost length, from E by N to W by S, is 51/8 miles; its breadth varies between 11/3 and 3 miles; and its area is 5082½ acres, of which 100 are foreshore. The Firth of Tay, contracting here from 2½ miles to 1¼ mile, is crossed at Wormit Bay, in the western extremity of the parish, by the new Tay Bridge. The coast-line, 3¾ miles long, trends, with slight curvature, from SW to NE; and above and below Newport projects the small headlands of Pluck the Crow Point and Craig Head (formerly Skarness). The shore at ebb tide is entirely silt or clay, at high water shows a line of gravel or boulders; and the coast is all bold or rocky, rising rapidly in places to a height of 100 feet above sea-level. The interior presents an irregular and undulating surface, a series of heights and hollows that attains 300 feet near Northfield, Inverdovet, St Fort, and Wormithill, and 400 at Newton Hill in the SW corner of the parish. The land slopes generally towards the Tay; and the immediate seaboard is, to a large extent, studded with villas of Dundee merchants and manufacturers, and, finely adorned with gardens, shrubberies, and woods, commands magnificent views across and along the Tay. The principal rocks are sandstone, sandstone conglomerate, fine-grained greenstone-trap, and amygdaloidal greenstone, the last of which has been largely quarried, both for house-building and for enclosures. The soil, over the greater part of the area, consists of the débris of the trap rocks, being partly light and gravelly, but chiefly either a good black loam or a clayey earth. About four-fifths of the entire area are in tillage, the rest being pretty equally divided between grass and plantations. Cairns or tumuli, composed of small stones, were formerly numerous; and rude ancient urns have been found at Newport, at Westfield, and in Tayfield Park. At Inverdufatha or Inverdovet, in 877, the Danes, pursuing the Scots from Dollar, gained a greatvictory, in which King Constantin mac Kenneth was among the great multitude slain. St Fort and Tayfield are the chief mansions; and 6 proprietors hold each an annual value of £500 and upwards, 14 of between £100 and £500, 27 of from £50 to £100, and 80 of from £20 to £50. In the presbytery of St Andrews and synod of Fife, this parish since 1878 has been ecclesiastically divided into Forgan proper and Newport, the former a living worth £357. Its old church standing in ruins at a beautiful sequestered spot, 2½ miles SE of Newport, was anciently held by St Andrews priory; the present one was built in 1841, and contains 550 sittings. Four other places of worship-Established, Free, U.P., and Congregational-are noticed under Newport; and two public schools, Forgan and Newport, with respective accommodation for 130 and 421 children, had (1881) an average attendance of 106 and 272, and grants of £91, 17s. 10d. and £270, 9s. Valuation (1866) £12,705, (1882) £26,183, 2s. 2d. Pop. of civil parish (1801) 916, (1831) 1090, (1851) 11 25, (1861) 1326, (1871) 2243, (1881) 3308; of ecclesiastical parish (1881) 1533.—Ord. Sur., shs. 49, 48, 1865-68.
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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.
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