Pricing Change
New pricing for orders of material from this site will come into place shortly. Charges for supply of digital images, digitisation on demand, prints and licensing will be altered.
Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Lowlands and Borders
Date 2007
Event ID 606538
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/606538
The Tay has been navigated up to Perth by small boats from at least as early as 1147 with the harbour, consisting of quays along the west shore, in existence for centuries. The modern harbour, opposite Moncreiffe Island, was originally planned by Robert and Alan Stevenson in 1833 with larger quays and a dock at an estimated cost of £48 714.
After a delay the developed scheme, then estimated to cost more than £50 000, was to have been completed by 1854 but in that year the Harbour Commissioners went bankrupt with the work only partly done. The harbour
and its debts were taken over by Perth Council but the work remained unfinished for a long time.
The Stevensons also directed a significant improvement of the Tay navigation channel by the removal of fords. By 1841 the water depth at spring tides had been increased from 1134 ft to 16 ft and vessels drawing 14 ft were able to reach Perth in one tide ‘with ease and safety’.
Much of the harbour walling was of timber which has gradually been replaced with steel-sheet piling. Harbour improvements costing £30 000 were carried out in 1955– 56.
R Paxton and J Shipway
Reproduced from 'Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Lowlands and Borders' with kind permission of Thomas Telford Publishers.
