For hundreds of years, salty pools provided an important ingredient for a thriving salmon fishing industry that put the town of Montrose on the international map.

Preserved and packed in salt, the king of fish would make the long journey from the Angus town to the grand dining tables of the well off in Spain, Portugal, Italy and France.

At its peak, thousands of barrels of salmon – and countless other fish caught in the area - were processed every year, helping to make Montrose one of the three biggest trading ports in the country.

With the demise of the fishing industry, left untouched, nature took over.

Now a project to restore the Montrose Basin saltmarsh is said to have had an immediate and dramatic impact, with areas that were once overgrown returned to open water – reviving plants which favour the salty environment and attracting waders and ducks.

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The restoration work is a major element in a series of projects intended to enhance coastal habitats at Montrose Basin on the river South Esk. The area, with its 750 hectares of tidal mudflats, is a haven for wildlife and home to over 100,000 migratory birds during autumn and winter, including pink-footed geese, wigeon and a variety of other waterfowl and waders.

During the spring and summer months the estuary supports various breeding colonies including sand martins, common terns and eider.

The Montrose Basin saltpans, known locally as Sa’ty Dyke, date back to the 15th Century, when saltworks supported the local, thriving salmon industry.

While huge nets stretching across the river captured an abundance of salmon – a process that, as salmon numbers dwindled, would eventually be outlawed – the transition saltmarsh area would flood at high tide, allowing salt to be extracted from a series of pools by a process of evaporation.

The Herald: Montrose BasinMontrose Basin (Image: Angus Council)

Local historian, Duncan Macdonald, said that church documents refer to salt production in the town as far back as the 12th century.

However, it was the boom in salmon exports in the mid-18th century that boosted the town and led to it becoming recognised across Europe, with its produce highly prized and sought after by the continent’s gentry.

“Salmon from Montrose would go to France, Portugal, Venice and other ports in Italy,” he said.  “The boats would come back loaded with a huge variety of produce that couldn’t be sourced here.

“Salthouses involved in the production of salt appeared at various places around the Montrose Basin including a large one at Usan, where a boil house extracted the salt using pans.”

The process of salt making, however, required a strong stomach, with the blood from slaughtered cattle used to help extract impurities.

“The salt that came from that process wasn’t white, it was dirty grey,” he added, “and was deemed ‘unsuitable to the human constitution’.”

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Changing tastes, a shift towards pickling and then ice for preservation and demand for better quality salt brought salt production in the area to a halt.

While eventually concerns over dwindling salmon numbers across the country would see the net-style of fishing for salmon outlawed.

By 2018, the last station in Scotland, Kinnaber Ltd on the North Esk, which once caught around 1700 salmon a year – most destined for Billingsgate market in London for the city’s high end restaurants – had closed.

Having fallen out of use, the traditional saltpan pools had become choked with rushes and reeds which squeez out specialist salt tolerant plants until they were no longer able to flourish.

The recent work to re-excavate the pools, carried out by Angus Council and the Scottish Wildlife Trust, has already seen “positive signs” of returning wildlife with hopes that eventually the habitat will become a new oasis for a multitude of species.  

Transition saltmarsh forms part of a saltmarsh network across the Montrose Nature Reserve, with the pools providing unique habitat as a feeding site and refuge for multiple wader species including lapwing, redshank, greenshank, oystercatcher, grey heron and little egret.

Duck species also benefit, including wigeon, who graze the site if there are open areas, and teal, who frequent the pools. Swallows, sand martins and house martins feed on invertebrates that thrive in the wet conditions. 

Work to restore the saltpans is part of £150,000 of funding for projects in the area from the Scottish Government’s Nature Restoration Fund.