Newport-on-Tay

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NEWPORT-ON-TAY

Incorporated into : 1975 North East Fife District Council (1996 Fife Area Council)

Official blazon

Gules, upon a base undy Argent and Azure, a lymphad Or, its mast flagged of Scotland, and in the stern a demi-lion rampant issuant of the Second, armed and langued and sustaining in his paws a cross-crosslet fitchee Azure, the sail emblazoned of the arms of Nairne of Sandfoord (vide licet: per pale Argent and Sable, on a chaplet four mullets, all counterchanged).

Below the Shield which is ensigned of a coronet appropriate to a Burgh is placed in an Escrol this Motto "Dei Flumen Nobis Lumen".

Origin/meaning

The arms were granted on August 3, 1956.

Newport-on-Tay, which owes its existence to the ancient ferries which plied from there to Dundee, became a Police Burgh in 1887.

The arms resemble the device on the 1892 Burgh seal but most of the detail has been altered. The ship and the sea recall that Newport was at the southern end of the ferry of Seamylnes, a ferry which ran for centuries until the opening of the Tay Road Bridge in 1966.

The ship bears on its sail the arms of Nairne of Sandford (now St. Fort) while the lion with the cross in the stern comes from the arms of Berry of Tay field; these two families have very close associations with the town.

The red and gold colours are those of Fife and are a reminder that on the former Burgh seal, the ship's sail bore the Macdufflion rampant.

The Latin motto "The river of God is a light to us" is based on Psalm 46:4.