East Common
Park type: Local Park
Features
- Pond with reedbed
- Promenade
- Views across the Tay to Broughty Ferry
Facilities
- Play park
- Football pitch
About East Common
Area: 20.2 acres / 8.2 hectares
East Common was once tidal marshland before becoming a public park. It’s a great place to sit and look out over the Tay to Dundee and Broughty Ferry. The Fife Coastal Path goes through the park and there is a play park and football pitches.
One of the park’s most distinctive features is the pond, which has evolved from a derelict boating pond into a haven for wildlife. Islands and reedbeds have been created, attracting swans, ducks and other water birds that now nest and feed there. Two species of bat also visit the pond.
Being beside the Tay gives opportunities to see coastal wildlife such as wading birds, eiders and if you are lucky, dolphins and sea eagles.
Park History
The name "Common" refers to the commonty rights that people once exercised, including pasturing cattle and livestock, steeping and drying their lint, washing and bleaching their clothes, and cutting turf and divots for steeping lint and occasionally for thatching their houses. Tammy Lorimer, a local resident, continued to exercise these rights and grazed his sheep on the East Common area until the mid-1950s.
The western side of the park was once part of the railway line to the Dundee ferry, which gave the town its original name, Ferry-Port on Craig. The Gaelic name for the town was Partan Craig (Crab Rock). The railway company later shortened the name to Tayport.
In 1933, the construction of a concrete sea wall transformed the area from tidal marshland into a public park. This development made promenading and swimming popular activities, leading to the construction of a shelter block with public toilets at the Snook Head. An ice cream hut and a changing hut for swimmers and footballers were also built on the opposite grassy bank.
During the 1950s and 60s, the Town Council annually refreshed the 2 designated swimming areas with sand from Tentsmuir beach.
Other activities available
- The Larick Centre
- Tayport Heritage Trail
- Leuchars to Wormit Bay - Fife Coast & Countryside Trust
- What's on | Fife Council
