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 Montrose High Street |
Montrose is a busy east coast town with something for everyone. Much of the town lies on a spit of sandy land a mile wide that extends southwards across the seaward side of the Montrose Basin, almost cutting this large tidal nature reserve off from the North Sea. Montrose's origins lie two miles to the west of today's town, on the west shores of Montrose Basin in Old Montrose. This probably served as the port for Brechin until a Viking raid in 980 largely wiped it out.
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The replacement settlement was formed on the sandy spit where it has grown ever since. The north side of the River South Esk offered deep water whatever the state of the tide, and the town that grew here was given a Royal Charter by David I in the 1100s. By 1180 there was a royal castle at Montrose, and a ferry plied between the town and Ferryden on the south side of the River South Esk. The castle was destroyed by William Wallace in 1297 and no trace of it remains.
 Montrose Harbour from Ferryden |
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 Seafront Ice Cream Shop |
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 Traill Pavilion |
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Despite the occasional attentions of other passing armies in later centuries, Montrose grew steadily in size and importance. Today you can think of it as six fairly distinct areas. The core of the town is its High Street, aligned north-south and home to most of the shops as well as to a collection of fine buildings like the library, the Town House, and Montrose Old Church with its landmark 220ft spire erected in 1834.
To the west of the High Street is the line of the main railway north to Aberdeen which, with Montrose Station, arrived in 1850. Beyond the railway is Montrose Basin, which hems in the town from this side. Proposals to reclaim half of the basin in the 1670s got as far as building an embankment across it, Dronners' Dyke, still visible, before the idea was abandoned after storm damage. More recently this part of town has become the location of Montrose's main supermarket and of an inner bypass taking through traffic away from the often very busy High Street.
East of the High Street is an interesting area characterised by open spaces, the Mid Links, in which you find bowling clubs and the towns football and cricket grounds, as well as Montrose Academy.
East again and you come to the open, largely grassy areas lying behind the dunes, which in turn lie behind Montrose's excellent beach. Here are the town's camping and caravanning site, the golf courses, and a range of attractions such as the Traill Pavilion that bring a genuine seaside resort feel to this part of town.
The fifth area of Montrose is found to the south, on the banks of the River South Esk. This is the location of Montrose's busy harbour, which has steadily grown over the past 900 years.
Montrose has at different times been an important centre for various types of fishing, from salmon to whales and herring, and including for a time a pearl fishery in the river itself. It has also been an important timber port, and for many centuries was one of Scotland's largest exporters of wool. Today it also benefits from harbour activity connected with the North Sea Oil industry.
The final area of Montrose lies to the north of the centre of the town, as the main road starts to lead towards Aberdeen. Now increasingly given over to housing developments this was once an important industrial area. Close by is the site of Britain's first operational military airfield, set up by the Royal Flying Corps in 1913, and reopened in WWII. Part of it is now used by an aviation museum.
Throughout the 1900s this area of Montrose was dominated by the tower of Lochside Distillery. This wonderful structure was unique in Scotland and owed much more to the architectural traditions of German breweries than those of Scottish distilleries.
On Thursday 1 February 2001, Angus Council granted planning permission for the demolition of buildings, erection of DIY store and garden centre to include car parking, site enclosure and landscaping. This was a death sentence for Lochside's Brauhaus tower, which sadly never achieved listed status and has since been demolished. On the bright side, the disappearance of Lochside will ensure some residents of Angus won't have to travel quite so far for their garden furniture or emulsion paint...
