History
Evidence exists of a human settlement in pre-historic times, later developing into a prosperous fishing and whaling village, before becoming home to 19th century jute barons who had their factories in Dundee. At this time it was known as the 'richest square mile in Europe'.
In 1495 Broughty Castle was built and remained in use as a major defensive structure until 1932, playing a role in the Anglo-Scottish Wars and the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. The castle stands on a shallow tip projecting into the Firth, alongside two beaches, one of sand, the other of pebbles.
The village has two Category A listed buildings, St Stephen’s Church (the parish church of the West Ferry) and St Luke’s Church built in the 19th century. St Stephen’s has exceptionally fine Victorian windows thought to be the best collection of Edward Burne-Jones stained glass in Scotland.
Prior to the construction of the first Tay Rail Bridge in 1878, a roll-on/roll-off railway ferry linked the Edinburgh to Aberdeen railway line between Tayport and Broughty Ferry, until the construction of the rail bridge made it redundant.
On 2 December 1943, a pigeon from Broughty Ferry called Winkie was awarded the Dickin Medal for "delivering a message under exceptional difficulties and so contributing to the rescue of an Air Crew while serving with the RAF in February 1942".
On 8 December 1959 the town's lifeboat, The Lifeboat Mona, was lost with all hands attempting to rescue a foundering lightship.
Read more about this topic: Barnhill Primary School
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“No one can understand Paris and its history who does not understand that its fierceness is the balance and justification of its frivolity. It is called a city of pleasure; but it may also very specially be called a city of pain. The crown of roses is also a crown of thorns. Its people are too prone to hurt others, but quite ready also to hurt themselves. They are martyrs for religion, they are martyrs for irreligion; they are even martyrs for immorality.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“In history an additional result is commonly produced by human actions beyond that which they aim at and obtain—that which they immediately recognize and desire. They gratify their own interest; but something further is thereby accomplished, latent in the actions in question, though not present to their consciousness, and not included in their design.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“In history the great moment is, when the savage is just ceasing to be a savage, with all his hairy Pelasgic strength directed on his opening sense of beauty;—and you have Pericles and Phidias,—and not yet passed over into the Corinthian civility. Everything good in nature and in the world is in that moment of transition, when the swarthy juices still flow plentifully from nature, but their astrigency or acridity is got out by ethics and humanity.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)