These boards, set into tablets, can be found in the vicinity of the windmill on the Fife Coastal Path, just east of the village of St Monans on the way to Pittenweem. This was the site of the saltpans of which the restored windmill a surviving relic. The first board reads as follows:
"ST MONANS SALTPANS
'The neatest and best contrived upon the coast'
In 1771 Sir John Anstruther and Robert Fall established the Newark Coal and Salt Works Company. Nine saltpans, probably a windmill pump, a settling tank and channel were built. A wagonway transported the coal to the pans and took salt and coal for export to nearby Pittenweem harbour.
The St Monans works became the third largest salt producer in Fife. However it only survived for about forty years, salt production had probably stopped by 1825.
SALT PRODUCTION AND THE FORTH BASIN
The Forth Basin with its abundant coal supplies to fire saltpan furnaces and its direct shipping routes to Northern Europe, was Scotland's main area of salt production for some eight hundred years.
In 1614 salt was Scotland's third most important export after wool and fish, although the market for salt could often fluctuate. The Scottish coal fired or industrial salt tended to retain impurities. This had a negative effect on sales and in the late 17th century, demand began to give way to the purer sun-evaporated salt from the Bay of Biscay.
In England rock salt was being exploited as an alternative source, after the repeal of the salt duties in 1825, the Scottish market became flooded with cheaper imports.
The last Scottish salt works continued in use at Prestonpans until 1959."
The second board reads:
"AN INDUSTRIAL LANDSCAPE
This beautiful rural landscape was once industrial, at the end of the 18th century the dirty, smokey process of salt-making went on around the clock.
Only the foundations of the pan houses now remain, the windmill, the power house of the site, has survived as a seamark. Cropmarks in the fields of nearby Coal Farm indicate the sites of the coal pits which supplied the works.
The geology of the area, abundant coal measures and soft, easily cut rock, brought the salt industry here.
HOW DID IT WORK?
The settling tank or 'bucket pot', would fill with sea water which was pumped up wooden pipes by the power of the windmill, to be distributed to the pan houses by a surface pipe or a water cart. The small coals or panwood brought by the wagonway were dumped into shutes at each house to be used in the furnaces which heated the pans. At one end of the panhouses was the 'girnel', a secure warehouse where the salt was stored and weighed by the salt officers, who ensured that the correct salt duties were paid.
Today the area is a Site of Special Scientific Interest and host to crustaceans and a myriad of seabirds."
The third board reads:
"THE PANHOUSES
Little detailed information about the St Monans panhouses can be found but the archaeological and documentary evidence from contemporary salt works gives some idea of how they might have worked.
Furnaces, possibly on iron plates below the pans, fired the large (18ft x 9ft / 5.9m x 2.74m) iron pans to boil the water. Egg white or bull's blood was added to help remove impurities. 6 to 8 tons of coal were needed to make 1 ton of salt. It took 3 boilings to produce enough salt to be raked off and each boiling would take 4 hours. The scooped out salt was packed in wicker baskets or sacking to dry.
The master salter and 2 or 3 assistants worked each panhouse, women and children carried coal and salt to and from the pans. The work was hot, dirty and exhausting, often requiring them to work through the night to keep the pans boiling.
Despite this and the need to live on site, salt workers seem to have integrated into St Monans society, some staying to take up new trades when the pans closed."