About the Solway

The Solway Firth Estuary is the third largest estuary in the UK and forms the sea border between Scotland and England. It is divided roughly on the Scottish side between the ‘inner firth’ – characterised by intertidal mudflats, sandbank and saltmarsh – and the ‘outer firth’ which has relatively shallow waters, rarely reaching over 50m. The water of the outer firth is significantly deeper than the inner firth and provides habitats for a variety of larger species than those which inhabit the shallower inner Solway. The outer Solway becomes deeper, with a steeper gradient, west of the Rhins of Galloway. Between Scotland and Ireland lies Beaufort’s Dyke, where depths can reach up to 300m. Rocky shores and cliffs are characteristic of the outer firth. Contrasts between these harder rocks and younger, softer sandstone, plus the north/south drainage pattern, have created a series of peninsulas divided by estuaries, with granite intrusions forming rugged uplands rising directly from the coast. At low tide huge expanses of mudflats are exposed on the inner Solway, above Balcary Point and Dubmill Point and within the bays and estuaries of the northern coast. 

Loch Ryan is orientated on a north–south axis, its mouth looking northward towards the North Atlantic and Firth of Clyde, with the town of Stranraer sitting on its southern shores. The loch itself is about eight miles long from end to end, and about three miles wide at its widest point. Loch Ryan basin, as it is seen today, formed as a result of geological and glacial activity and its shallow enclosed nature makes it an ideal habitat for Scotland’s last native oyster, Ostrea edulis, fishery (the rights to which were granted to the Wallace family in 1701 by King William III and have remained in the family ever since) as well as seagrass and internationally important sea bird colonies.