Entitled 'Ferryden - An old fishing village', this information board tells the story of the village that the walker has passed through to reach this point overlooking the mouth of the River South Esk as it reaches the North Sea.
The text reads as follows:
'Ferryden got its name from the ancient ferry over the river South Esk. A ferry boat was still in use up to the 1930s long after bridges were built over the river.
The river South Esk offered shelter anchorage and Montrose Basin a plentiful supply of bait so a village grew up on the south bank of the river in which fishing was the main occupation. Houses made of the local Scurdie Rock were built near the shoreline. The village grew in size and population during the 19th century and by 1881 the population had risen to 1500 with 156 boats and 350 fishermen. New houses overlooking the older dwellings were built in Beacon Terrace and Rossie Terrace, giving the village the shape it still has today.
Cod and haddock, caught using lines, each with over 1200 hooks, were the main catch. Drift net fishing for herring became more important and by the beginning of the 20th century Ferryden had a fleet of large sailing drifters called "Fifies" which followed the great shoals of herring down the coast from the Shetlands to Yarmouth in Norfolk.
Steam drifters were replacing the sailing boats by the time the First World War broke out in 1914.
The war disrupted the export trade in pickled salt herring and the industry never recovered. Ferryden fishermen sold their drifters and went back to local line fishing. Young men did not follow their fathers into fishing and the village gradually declined as a fishing community. The last Ferryden fisherman, Andrew Mearns, from a great family of fisherman, retired in the 1980s.
Fishing villages like Ferryden were close communities. Fishing involved the whole family. Women collected the bait, sheiled (shelled) the mussels and baited the lines. They looked after the home and raised large families, when the men were away at the herring fishing. Young unmarried women followed the herring fleet. Their job was to gut the fish, pickle it in salt and pack it in barrels. This was a hard life that made for tough and independent women.
Montrose had one of the earliest lifeboat stations in Britain. The lifeboat was manned by Ferryden fishermen who were summoned in an emergency by rockets. They would row across to the lifeboat shed on the north side of the river and launch the lifeboat down a slipway. Rowing lifeboats were in use up to the 1930s. The first motor lifeboat the "John Russell" arrived in 1924.
Ferryden is no longer a fishing village and the community is now much more diverse. The appearance of the village was radically changed in the 1970s by the construction of a base for the North Sea oil support vessels, now part of Montrose Port Authority, but the old part of the village remains largely as it was a century ago.'
The board is also adorned with many old photographs of the village. It is situated on the eastern side of Ferryden at the beginning of the tarmac path that leads to Scurdie Ness lighthouse.