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Home > Visit Angus > Exploring Angus > Montrose: Visit Montrose
Montrose is a bustling coastal town with an ancient history, classic Georgian and Victorian architecture, a wide High Street with good shopping, and lots to offer the visitor.It is a 12th century burgh with interesting museums, and modern leisure facilities, including a family friendly Seafront Splash adventure play area by the excellent Blue Flag beach. The town has a camping and caravan site on the links, the fifth oldest golf course in the world, and is a good base from which to explore North Angus.
Search the Listings to find the full range of attractions in and around Montrose.
Montrose's origins lie a few miles west of today's town, on the west shores of Montrose Basin in Old Montrose. 
A Viking raid in 980 caused devastation to the original township, but it was rebuilt, and the town was given a Royal Charter by David I in the 1100s. By 1180 there was a royal castle at Montrose, and a ferry ran between the town and Ferryden.
The castle was destroyed by William Wallace in 1297, and it has vanished without trace. The harbour was the source of the town's prosperity, and still bustles with activity today. From this Hanseatic trading port of significance, Montrose's merchants traded with the Baltic and nearby Europe, and built large residences along the High Street and on the Links. The posrt was extended to take in the Ferryden side in the 1970s, at the time when oil exploration and extraction in the North Sea began.
Montrose has a notable place in aviation history. Britain's first operational military airfield was set up near Montrose by the Royal Flying Corps in 1913 and is now Montrose Air Station Heritage Centre, where visitors can view wartime artefacts and military aircraft and vehicles.The town was home to William Lamb, sculptor and printmaker, in the first half of the 20th century, at a time when it was a hub of cultural activity, with writer Hugh McDiarmid, and poet Violet Jacob in the area, and painter Edward Baird in residence on the High Street. Montrose Museum and Art Gallery interprets the history of the burgh, in a listed building adjacent to the delightful Mid Links. Follow the Montrose Sculpture Trail, and enjoy the old closes and byways of the town's medieval plan.
The town lies on a spit of sandy land which extends south across the side of the Montrose Basin, which is a large tidal nature reserve at the mouth of the South Esk.
The Scottish Wildlife Trust operate a modern, purpose-built Wildlife Centre at Rossie Braes, on the A92 south of the town, which offers fantastic telescopic and televisual views of the area, and of the thousands of migratory birds which pass through the area in all seasons.
In Winter, 20,000 pink-foot geese take up residence on the mudflats, feeding in the nearby fields by day, and returning to the safety of the Basin in the evening. The haunting fluting of their calls are beloved of local people, for whomthe soundmarks the turning of the seasons. The many feeders attract brightly coloured field and garden birds, and the occasional woodpecker.
In Summer, you might be luckyto see the osprey which hunts the length of the Basin, or a kingfisher flitting past. The artificial sand-martin bank is a hive of activity all Spring and early Summer, you can watch the blue-tits and swallows inside their nests, and take in the panoramic vista of the rolling Angus countryside and hills.
Maritime MontroseMontrose's busy harbour has 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.It has also been an important timber port, and for many centuries was one of Scotland's largest exporters of wool. Today it benefits from the off-shore oil industry.
Montrose was once the centre of a thriving smuggling trade. It was comparatively remote and had plenty of trade connections with Europe. To the north was eight miles of rocky coast and to the south the shore between Scurdie Ness and Boddin Point was rich with caves.
Wide sandy bays such as LunanBay and the five mile stretch of beach from Montrose to St Cyrus meant the area was a smugglers' paradise.
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