Groome's Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland, 1901
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 1.5 miles SSE of Dundee (by steam ferry). It is bounded NW by the Firth of Tay, E by Ferryport-on-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 5.125 miles; its breadth varies between 1.33 and 3 miles; and its area is 5082.5 acres, of which 100 are foreshore. The Firth of Tay, contracting here from 2.5 miles to 1.25 mile, is crossed at Wormit Bay, in the western extremity of the parish, by the Tay Bridge. The coast line, 3.75 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 debris 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 great victory, in which King Constantin mac Kenneth was among the great multitude slain. St Fort and Tayfield are the chief mansions. 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 £362. Its old church standing in ruins at a beautiful sequestered spot, 2.5 miles SE of Newport, was anciently held by St Andrews priory; the present one was built in 1841. In 1895 a hall was built at Wormit, and opened for public worship on 15 Sept. 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 an average attendance of 106 and 301, and grants of £90 3s. 8d. and £333 2s. 6d. Valuation (1892) £27041 9s. 5d. Pop. of civil parish (1801) 916, (1831) 1090, (1861) 1326, (1891) 3763; of ecclesiastical parish (1881) 1533, (1891) 1899. - Ord. Sur., shs. 49, 48, 1865-68.
Newport
a small seaport town in Forgan parish, Fife, on the Firth of Tay, 11 miles NNE of Cupar by road, and 1.5 miles SSE of Dundee by water, with two stations on the Tayport section of the North British railway, 2.75 miles W by S of Tayport, and about a mile from Wormit, at the southern end of the Tay Bridge. It became a burgh in 1887. Consisting of two parts, Easter and Wester Newport - the station at the former place being for goods as well as passengers - 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 with money order, savings bank, insurance, and telegraph departments, a town hall, a hotel, a ferry harbour, a gaswork, Established, Free and U.P. churches, a Congregational church, a Scottish Episcopalian church, a Roman Catholic church (1890), a public school, 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 and communicates with Dundee hourly by steamer. The 'Mars' training ship lies at anchor a few hundred yards off the shore. 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. The Episcopal church (St Mary), erected in 1887 and consecrated in 1888, is and Early Gothic edifice with 247 sittings. Pop. of q. s. parish (1881) 1775, (1891) 1864; of town (1841) 260, (1871) 1507, (1881) 2311, (1891) 2548 of whom 1550 were females. Houses (1891) inhabited 543, vacant 34, building 3. - Ord. Sur., sh. 49, 1865.
Tayfield
a mansion in Forgan parish, Fife, close to Newport, and opposite Dundee.
Woodhaven
a village in Forgan parish, Fife, on the Firth of Tay, opposite Dundee, and 1 mile SW of Newport.
Original at National Library of Scotland, Digital gallery
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