- Burns Cottage, Alloway, Ayrshire
This evening, I am focusing on the birthplace of Robert Burns, Scotland’s national poet. This is located in the village of Alloway, south of Glasgow. It was here that Burns was born on Jan 25th 1759. His early years were spent here and influences from the immediate locality, such as the Brig o’Doon and Alloway Kirk found their way into his poetry.
The cottage was built by Burns father with his own hands in 1756. Burns called it ‘an ald, cley biggin’. It actually fell apart during a violent storm in 1759 and had to be rebuilt.
After the Burns family moved two miles away in 1766 the cottage and seven acres of cultivated land was let to various tenants until 1781 when it was sold to the Incorporation of Shoemakers in Ayr who let it out as an alehouse. Subsequently, the Alloway Monument Trustees rescued and restored the building to more or less its current state. The cottage is now under managemnt of the National Trust for Scotland and is a popular visitor attraction in the area.
