Town in Angus, Scotland
Montrose
Montrose has a ghost pilot, a tidal basin full of geese and a football club called the Gable Endies, all on one stretch of Angus coast.
Key information
- County
- Angus
- Nation
- Scotland
- Known for
- Montrose Basin, its aviation history, golf links and the Marquis of Montrose
- Famous people
- James Graham, Marquis of Montrose; Joseph Hume; Alexander Burnes; William Lamb
- Football clubs
- Montrose FC (the Gable Endies), who play at Links Park
About Montrose
The airman who never clocked off
In 1913 Montrose became the first operational military air station in Scotland, when the Royal Flying Corps arrived and put aeroplanes on the fields outside town. It also acquired a ghost. Lieutenant Desmond Arthur was killed in a flying accident there in May 1913, and for years afterwards airmen reported seeing his figure around the station. The story of the ghostly pilot has been told ever since, and it is one of the most famous ghost stories in British aviation. The old airfield is now remembered at the Montrose Air Station Heritage Centre, which keeps the town's flying story alive.
Why locals are Gable Endies
Montrose people are known as Gable Endies. The name comes from the old merchants' houses that turned their gable ends to the street, with narrow closes and yards running back towards the harbour. The nickname has been taken up by the football club. Montrose FC, formed in 1879, play at Links Park and are known as the Gable Endies too. The town's High Street is notably broad and handsome, a reminder that Montrose was a prosperous trading port long before oil rigs and chemical works arrived.
A basin that fills and empties twice a day
Behind the town lies Montrose Basin, a large tidal bowl that the sea floods and drains with each tide. At low water it becomes a glistening expanse of mud and sand. That makes it a feeding ground for huge numbers of birds. Pink-footed geese arrive in autumn, and swans, waders and ducks use the basin through the year. A wildlife centre on its edge lets visitors watch them. On the seaward side, golf has been played on the Montrose links since at least 1562, which makes it one of the oldest golfing grounds anywhere. Scurdie Ness Lighthouse, built in 1870 by the Stevenson engineering family, watches over the harbour mouth.
Kings stripped, a prince smuggled out
Montrose has been a stage for big moments in Scottish history. In 1296 King John Balliol was stripped of his royal regalia here after his defeat by Edward I of England, earning him the nickname Toom Tabard, or empty coat. In February 1716 James Francis Edward Stuart, the Old Pretender, slipped away to France from Montrose after the failure of the 1715 Jacobite rising. The town gave its name to James Graham, the Marquis of Montrose, the brilliant Royalist commander of the 1640s civil wars. He was executed in Edinburgh in 1650.
Radicals, explorers and a poet in the newsroom
Joseph Hume, born in Montrose in 1777, became one of the great radical MPs of the early nineteenth century and campaigned for reform and economy in government. Alexander Burnes, born in the town in 1805, became an explorer and diplomat in Central Asia and was killed in Kabul in 1841. The sculptor William Lamb was a Montrose man too. His studio is now a museum showing his work. The poet Hugh MacDiarmid worked in Montrose in the 1920s as a journalist on the Montrose Review and served on the town council. He wrote some of his best-known early work while living there.
Port, pharma and seafood
Montrose still works as a port. Its harbour has served shipping for centuries, and in modern times it has supported North Sea oil and gas as well as industry on the south side of the river. The fishing tradition lives on in the local larder. Seafood from the coast sits alongside Angus beef and the smoked haddock of Arbroath, just down the road.