A town in NE Fife, situated on the Firth of Tay opposite Dundee and lying between the Tay road and rail bridges where it forms an urban area that includes Wormit and Woodhaven.
It owes its existence to a ferry that crossed the firth here from at least the 12th Century from a site once called Seamylnes. The town expanded during the 19th century, firstly with the building of a new harbour in the 1820s to a design by Thomas Telford, and secondly with the development of a fashionable residential commuter settlement for wealthy Dundee jute manufacturers. Formerly known as New Dundee, the greater part of this settlement was built on the Tayfield Estate of the Berry family and includes many interesting examples of late Georgian and Victorian architecture, including the unusual Yellow Castle (1813).
The 2-mile (3.5-km) long Tay Railway Bridge, designed by W.H. Barlow & Sons and opened in 1887, replaced the earlier bridge of Thomas Bouch which collapsed in 1879 a year after its completion. To the east, the Tay is crossed by the 1¼-mile (2-km) long concrete multispanned Tay Road Bridge which was designed by Fairhurst & Partners and opened in 1966. Newport has a bowling club and the Waterstone Crook Sports Centre.
