IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Lochside Gardens, TAYPORT, DD6 9DU

Pond on East Common, some tidied up links in Tayport - i.e. a rather pleasant park.

An ornamental pond in Tayport's East Common, close to the holiday caravan park.

Until fifteen minutes ago I had no idea that boating ponds even existed. It is denoted as one on the OS big-scale 1960s map. I was initially confused as to why there would be any necessity for a boating pond when the actual sea is in plain sight and only a stone's throw away. Further digging into this hitherto unknown subject to me revealed that boating ponds are designed for the racing of model boats. Even further digging into the subject revealed how complicated this hobby actually is. It doesn't seem to be anywhere near as popular as it once was, which is why the very tame mallards now have the run of the place, but it still goes on. The biggest challenge, which is obvious if you think about it, is that there is no-one actually in the boat to do the sail changes and so on. I have to admit I got a bit lost by this point but it seems that model boating enthusiasts have come up over the years with all manner of clever contrivances in order to counteract this problem. I am in fact so curious now that I would like to see a model boat race myself - if it all goes wrong do they have to sail out in a blow-up dinghy to rescue their crafts? The pond is square and looks fairly shallow. There is a section of reeds at its Northern end and two or three trees, which must be on mini-islands, though it was hard to know for sure, protrude from the surface on the Eastern side.

Owned by James Donalsdon & Sons. This was an out of use W H Allen inverted vertical three cylinder compound driving a DC generator and developing 290 bhp. This was very much the same type of engine as used on the Titanic for its electricity supply but a fair bit smaller. It was scrapped in the period 1984-7.

Ordnance Survey benchmark, described on database at http://www.bench-marks.org.uk/bm74554.