1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Tayport

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TAYPORT, a police burgh of Fifeshire, Scotland. Pop. (1901) 3325. It is situated on the Firth of Tay, here about 1 m. wide, opposite to Broughty Ferry, with which there is communication by means of a ferry, 51/2 m. N. of Leuchars Junction by the North British railway. Its older alternative name of Ferry Port on Craig has reference both to its uses and its site. Its industries include manufactures of linen and jute, spinning mills, engineering works, timber-yard and salmon fishery. In other respects it is a residential quarter for Dundee. A mile S.W. is the estate of Scotscraig, which belonged to Archbishop Sharp (1613–1679), of whose mansion there are still some traces. Two miles and a half W. by S. is the police burgh of Newport (pop. 2869), with stations at Easter and Wester Newport, on the North British Railway Company’s loop line from Leuchars Junction to Wormit. It lies on the Firth of Tay opposite to Dundee, with which there is communication by means of a ferry, as well as by rail via the Tay Bridge. Even to a greater extent than has Tayport, it has practically become a suburb of Dundee. Its small harbour was designed by Telford. Two and a quarter miles S.W. of Wormit, the nearest railway station, close to the southern terminus of the Tay Bridge, is the village of Balmerino (Gaelic, “ Town on the seashore ”). Its once considerable shipping trade has declined, but some fishery is still carried on. In 1227 Ermengarde, widow of William the Lion, and her son Alexander II. founded a Cistercian Abbey here, but in 1604 the Abbey estates were converted into a temporal lordship in favour of James Elphinstone, created Lord Balmerino.