NEWBURGH, a parish and sea-port and burgh and markettown, in the district of Cupar, county of Fife, 1 1 miles (S. E.) from Perth, and 40 (N.) from Edinburgh; the parish containing '2897 inhabitants, of whom '2491 are in the burgh: Mount-Pleasant, a suburb of the town, in Abdie parish, contains .5'24 inhabitants. The parish of Newburgh derives its name from a town built here long before the separation of the district from the parish of Abdie, or Lindores, of which, previously to the year 16'2'2, the lands formed a part. The town appears to have been indebted for its increase to the encouragement of the abbots of the monastery of Lindores, near which it was situated. This monastery was founded by David, Earl of Huntingdon, about the year 1180, and dedicated to the Virgin Mary and St. Andrew, for monks of the Benedictine order, who were placed in it from the abbey of Kelso. Soon after its foundation, the earl granted to the abbot of Lindores, and to the church of St. Mary and St. Andrew, the island of Fedinch, supposed to be the present Mugdrum, with the fisheries in the river Tay adjoining, and a right of taking, from his quarries at Irneside, stone for the erection of conventual buildings. Additional grants were made by William the Lion, Alexander HI., and other kings of Scotland, for its endowment; which was subsequently augmented by James II., who gave to the monastery the lands of Parkhill, in Fife. It continued to flourish under a long succession of abbots till the year 1600, when James VI. erected the abbacy into a temporal lordship. In 1606 John, the last abbot of whom any notice occurs, is said to have assisted at a general council held at Westminster to deliberate on the expediency of establishing episcopacy in Scotland. The TOWN is advantageously situated upon the river Tay, which near Newburgh is divided by the island of Mugdrum into two channels, called respectively the North and the South Deep, the latter being the principal roadway for ships approaching the port. The greater part of the town has been rebuilt within the last fifty or sixty years, and it has also been much increased by the erection of suburbs. Its streets are paved, and lighted with gas by a company lately established here; and the inhabitants are amply supplied with excellent water from springs. The houses are for the most -part large, and uniformly built of greenstone from the neighbouring quarries; the public buildings, of the same material, are embellished with freestone of good quality from Cuparmoor and other places. Its appearance is cheerful and prepossessing; and from its sheltered situation, the salubrity of its air, and the beauty and variety of the surrounding scenery, Newburgh is fast growing into favour as a summer residence for families at a distance. The linen manufacture has long been established here, affording employment to several hundreds of persons in hand-loom weaving, and to more than 350 persons, chiefly women, in winding bobbins. The linen made here is chiefly dowlas sheeting, for which a ready market is obtained in London, Leeds, and Manchester, and of which great quantities are also exported to the West Indies and South America; the finest pieces are what are called " fourteen-hundred linens". It appears that the number of looms in the town is .560, producing on an average '23,600 webs, 140 yards in length, and from one yard to three yards in width, and in which are contained more than 826,000 spindles of yarn. There is also an extensive bleachfield, supplied with pure water from the spring called the Nine Wells, the waters of which arc collected into one copious and powerful stream. A considerable trade is carried on in grain; and a market for stock, opened in 1830, is held on Tuesday, and numerously attended by dealers from all ])arts of the adjacent country. Fairs are held for horses, cattle, and sheep, on the first Tuesday in April, the third Friday in June, and second Tuesday in October; and for hiring servants, on the first Tuesday in December. A postollice is established, which has a good delivery; and facilities of communication arc alforded with the neighbouring towns by excellent turnpike-roads, of which that from Cupar to Perth passes through the town. Here is also a station on the Perth section of the Edinburgh, Perth, and Dundee railway. The trade of the port consists principally in the exportation of the linens manufactured in the town and parish to the West Indies and South America, and the importation of timber from the Baltic, North America, and Norway, generally brought by vessels belonging to those parts. Ten vessels, varying from sixty to 150 tons, belong to Newburgh, and these are employed chiefly in the coal trade. Most of the potatoes and other agricultural produce of Strathearn, Kinross, and the surrounding district, are shipped from this port for the London market. Two packets are regularly engaged in bringing the raw materials for the linen manufacture from Dundee; and vessels bound for Perth are frequently obliged to wait here for the flow of the tide. The steam-boats between Perth and Dundee touch at Newburgh daily; and a passage-boat has long been established on the Tay between the Pow of Errol and this place. There is also a steamer belonging to Newburgh, which commenced a few years ago to ply between it and Perth. The port is situated on that channel of the river called the South Deep, and is accessible to ships of .500 tons, which can load and unload their cargoes on the quay. The landing-place consists of four piers, projecting boldly into the channel: warehouses and granaries have been built for the accommodation of the merchants, and several handsome dwelhnghouses for the residence of persons connected with the shipping. Ship-building is extensively carried on. The revenue paid to the custom-house is considerable, and the trade of the port gradually increasing. In 1S47 an act was passed for the construction of a branch, less than a mile in length, from the Perth line of railway, to the harbour. Many persons are occupied in the salmonfishery of the Tay; the fish are of superior quality, and very much esteemed. The number of boats on the average is thirty, and about sixty seamen are engaged: there are several stations, on one of which, employing only two boats, 250 salmon, 610 grilse, and a proportionate number of trout, were taken in one season. Considerable numbers are still caught, which, after affording an abundant supply for the town and neighbourhood, are shipped to London by the Dundee steamers, which perform the voyage in about thirty-five hours. The Sperling, or saliiw eperlanus of naturalists, is also found here, though not in any other part of the Firth of Tay. The nets for taking the Sperling are fixed by stakes in the rapids of the current, and the fish are obtained in great quantities, even in the winter months, so long as the river is free from ice; they are much valued by the inhabitants of the place, and find a ready market also at Perth. The people of Newburgh received their earliest charter of incorporation from the abbot of Lindores, who erected the town into a burgh of regality, and endowed the burgesses with the lands of Woodriff 'and the hills adjacent, which now constitute the principal revenue of the corporation. In 1631, Charles I. confirmed the preceding charter, making the town a royal burgh, and investing the burgesses with various privileges and immunities: among these was the right of sending a member to the Scottish parliament, which, however, from neglect, soon fell into disuse. Under these charters the government is vested in two magistrates, and a council of fifteen burgesses, assisted by a town-clerk and other officers. The magistrates exercise jurisdiction over the royalty of the town, but not over the whole of the harbour and suburbs; they are elected by the council, by whom also all the other ofiicers are appointed. Courts are held weekly, on Wednesday, for the trial of civil actions and of misdemeanors, the town-clerk acting as assessor; but little business has been done in these courts, since the small-debt sheriff circuit courts were established, one of which is held here quarterly by the sheriff-substitute of the county. The town-house, a neat edifice with a spire, was erected in 1808; and a building of considerable size has been since added to it for the use of the stock market. The PARISH, after its separation from that of Abdie, under the sanction of the Archbishop of St. Andrew's, in 1622, was enlarged by the addition of a portion of the adjoining parish of Abernethy, annexed to it by the same authority. The present parish is about three miles in length from north to south, and two miles in breadth from east to west, inclosing an irregular area, bounded on the north by the Tay, which washes the coast for about two miles. It comprises 1 145 acres, of which 280 are meadow and pasture, ninety acres woodland and plantations, forty acres garden and orchard, and the remainder good arable land in a state of profitable cultivation. Towards the east the surface is flat, but towards the west rises gently till it terminates in a tract of table-land, from which, in a southern direction, is a gradual ascent until it reaches the Black Cairn, elevated about SCO feet above the level of the sea. To the southwest, also, the land forms a ridge increasing in elevation, and which at Craig-Sparrow is 600 feet in height. The low lands are intersected by a stream that issues from the loch of Lindores, in the parish of Abdie, and falls into the river Tay at the north-eastern extremity of this parish; and also by another streamlet, flowing from Loch Mill, in the same parish, and joining the Eden at Auchtermuchty. The Tay, after receiving the waters of the Earn on the west, expands into a breadth of almost two miles at this place; and its channel, as already observed, is divided nearly into two equal portions by the island of Mugdrum, in the parish of Abernethy. There are many excellent and copious springs, of which the one called Nine Wells rises in the hilly district towards the south-west. The soil, in the higher lands, though of little depth, is very fertile, consisting of a loose black loam; and in the low lands, a remarkably rich clay, under proper management producing abundant crops. The system of agriculture is in the highest state of improvement; the crops are, barley, of which the chevalier species is fast coming into general use, oats, potatoes, turnips, and some wheat. In the vicinity of the town are some orchards abounding with fruit of the finest quality, which finds a ready sale at the market, and returns a high profit to the proprietors. In this parish the principal woods are those of Mugdrum (not on the isle), comprising about thirty acres on the banks of the Tay, and consisting chiefly of spruce-firs and larch; and Pitcairly, twelve acres in extent, producing some fine specimens of ash, beech, elm, and plane. The plantations on the Town's land comprise more than forty acres of spruce, Scotch fir, and larch, of recent growth, and in a thriving condition. The substratum of the parish is principally of the trap formation: in the lower part a fine-grained porphyritic greenstone, and in the upper a compact felspar, and some beds of trap tufFa, are found. In the small veins of the greenstone are crystals of quartz, carbonate of lime, barytes, and other minerals; and in the felspar occur nodules of claystone, and agates of jasper, approaching in quality to the Mocha stone. Among the hills are boulders of primitive rock, granite, gneiss, quartz, mica-slate embedded with garnets, and primitive greenstone. The annual value of real property in the parish is £4958. Mugdrum House and Pitcairly are the principal mansions. Newburgh is ecclesiastically in the presbytery of Cupar, synod of Fife, and in the patronage of the Earl of Mansfield and the Hay family: the minister's stipend is £225. 14. 2., with a manse, and a glebe valued at £40 per annum. The church, erected in 1833, and situated in the centre of the town, is a spacious and handsome structure in the later English style, and forms a conspicuous feature in the view; it is adapted for a congregation of 1000 persons. There are places of worship for the United Presbyterian Church and small congregations of Baptists, Independents, and Wesleyans. The parochial school afifords a useful course of instruction; the master has a salary of £34. 4. 4., with £22 fees, and a good house and garden, in addition to which he possesses about four acres of land bequeathed to the school manj' years since. There are two Sabbath schools, to each of which is attached a juvenile library. Little remains of the ancient monastery of Lindorf.s, which after its dissolution soon sank into a state of dilapidation and decay; but even its inconsiderable ruins, which for some time have been carefully preserved, afford obvious indications of its former splendour. The porch of the church is in good preservation, and shows the original building to have been of elegant design, and of elaborate workmanship: the walls are massive, and appear to have been very extensive. Among the ruins of the abbey was found a stone coffin, said to have contained the body of the Duke of Rothesay, who was barbarously put to death in the palace of Falkland, and privately buried within the monastery; and it is traditionally recorded that James, ninth Earl of Douglas, who was taken prisoner at Barneswark Hill, was immured in the abbey, in which he continued till his death in the year 1488. In the hills to the south of the ruins, the sites of the monks' and abbot's wells are still pointed out; but no traces whatever remain of the causeway that extended from the abbey to the church of Magirdum, in the parish of Dron: this causeway was raised by the monks, who went annually to that place to unite with the nuns of Elcho in paying their devotions to the patron saint. Among the woods westward of the town are the remains of an ancient cross called tho Cross af Mii'^drum, consisting of the upright shaft, inserted in a pedestal, and ornamented with curious antique devices on the several stages into which its surface is divided. The two upper compartments of the east face have in each the sculptured representation of a man on horseback, much mutilated; and in the two lower compartments are two horses of unequal size, and the rei)resentation of a l)oarhunt, very rudely sculptured. On another side are some scroll ornaments; but on the two other sides, the figures or devices are entirely o1)literated. A transverse portion appears to have been broken ofiF; the shaft is of sand- stone, and about seven feet in height. The name of the cross is supposed to be a corruption of Magridin, the saint to whom it was dedicated. By some antiquaries it is thought to have been raised to commemorate the defeat of the Danes in the battle of Luncarty, about the close of the tenth century, through the resolute valour of Hay and his sons, who compelled their retreating countrymen to return to the field of battle. About a mile southward of this monument, on the confines of Strathearn, is another ancient relic of the same material, called Macduff's Cross. It consists of one large block of stone, deeply indented in several parts, in each of which cavities there were formerly an iron staple and a ring, said to have been intended for securing certain cattle offered by the Macduff family as an atonement for the crime of murder. The shaft was destroyed by the Reformers, on their route from Perth to the abbey of Lindores, in 1559. Near the site is a cairn of loose stones, called .Sir Robert's Prop, raised over the grave of Sir Robert Balfour of Denmill, who fell in a duel not far from the spot towards the commencement of the last century. The Earl of Newburgh takes his title from this parish.