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Museum of Robert Burns’ Birthplace

The Robert Burns Museum contains many places in Alloway with ties to the poet, such as the thatched cottage where he was born, Alloway Auld Kirk, The Poet’s Path, the Burns Monument, and Brig O’ Doon, where you can stand where Tam O’ Shanter fled from the witches. The museum is located in the United Kingdom, Murdoch’s Lone, Alloway — KA7 4PQ

The Location

Burns Museum is located close to the Burns Monument and garden. Huge amounts of glass were used in the design of the museum to provide visitors with a view of the surroundings that served as the source of much of Burns’ poetry. The museum’s interior is crammed with writings, writing implements, and other Burns-related items.

However, the National Trust for Scotland has gone to great lengths to create a cutting-edge museum with interesting interactive features; it is much more than just a collection of stationary exhibits. You can sit next to a pulpit and take a sermon’s rebuke much like Robert Burns did numerous times while listening to music from a playlist dedicated to him.

The poet’s birthplace

A winding road leads to Burns Cottage, the poet’s birthplace, from the main museum. Burns’ most well-known works are depicted in sculptures that decorate the walkway. A mouse the size of a person standing on its hind legs is one of the funniest sculptures. Based on a real mouse that the artist’s cat caught while the sculptor was looking for inspiration for the Poet’s Path piece, this was made by Kenny Hunter.

A series of weather vanes that line the walkway depict the Tam O’ Shanter tale, which was set here in Alloway. It is a fascinating place to walk around the area Burns wrote about. Burns’ line of poetry “As times go by, we a’ become nae better than sic a thriftless crew” was supposedly written specifically about people like the sculptures in this garden shed-style neo-classical building.

The Cottage

Burns Cottage, Robert Burns’ original residence, is located in the South Ayrshire town of Alloway in Scotland. In 1757, his father William Burness built it. On January 25, 1759, Robert Burns, Scotland’s national poet, was born there. The Robert Burns Birthplace Museum now includes a two-room clay and thatch cottage that has undergone extensive restoration.

The main entrance to this long, low, thatched building, which faces Alloway High Street, is situated next to a small garden that has an education centre on one side, off the parking lot behind the building. Robert Burns was born in this cottage on January 25, 1759, and lived there for his first seven years. The cottage was built by Robert’s father, William Burn.

Burns was born in a box bed that was raised in a kitchen nook. John Murdoch, the young Burns’ tutor, provided him with his early education in the parlour, or “Spence.” The National Trust for Scotland decorated the interior of the cottage with a verse from a few of Burns’ poems. Although not everyone will enjoy how the cottage has been changed, it does serve to evoke the style of Burns’ poetry and his connections to his impoverished upbringing.

The cottage has a “kailyard,” or vegetable garden, right outside. The poet’s statue is partially hidden by the foliage in a large ornamental garden that is beyond this. This is a lovely setting that does provide some understanding of Burns’ family life and the ways in which his early years influenced and inspired his later poetry.

The Auld Kirk

Just across the street from the Victorian church that took its place are the roofless ruins of the Auld Kirk. The kirk, which was constructed in 1516, housed worshippers until 1756. It appears that the roof was lost shortly after it was first used for regular worship. William Burns, the father of Robert Burns, is interred just inside the kirkyard entrance.

However, the gravestone is not the original because souvenir hunters tore it apart and stole the real thing. On the back of his father’s headstone is an epitaph that Burns himself wrote.

Around the church, little stones inscribed with lines from Burns’ poems are placed like paving stones. It’s a really nice place, especially when the sun shines through the nearby trees and paints the cemetery like a surrealist painting.

Tam O’ Shanter, one of Robert Burns’ best-known poems, includes a reference to the kirk. After a night of revelry, Tam is described in the poem as returning home when he notices strange lights and hears music coming from the deserted church. The Devil is playing the bagpipes outside the window as he watches a group of witches dancing. Tam frightens the witches and must cross Brig O’ Doon to flee for his life.

Brig of Doon

The lower entrance to the Burns Monument Garden is practically directly across from the late-medieval Brig O’ Doon, also known as the Brig of Doon, which is situated down the hill from the Auld Kirk. The bridge might have been built by Bishop Kennedy, Chancellor of Scotland, sometime around 1460. A single-arch bridge from the 15th century, it is substantial with a height of 26 feet and a span of 72 feet. The bridge was first mentioned in a historical record in 1512, and it was purportedly in ruins by 1593.

Tam O’ Shanter in the poem by Robert Burns who is being pursued by witches crosses the bridge in the poem to save his life. He arrives at the keystone in the centre of the bridge just as one of the witches reaches for his horse’s tail. As the horse makes one final leap, the witch is left behind, still holding onto the horse’s tail.

Crossing the bridge’s cobbled surface is a breathtaking view of the Burns Monument in the distance, and the keystone is clearly visible. However, the route ends there. The Brig can also be seen on the 2007 Bank of Scotland 5-pound notes.

The Significance of the Monument

The centre of a vibrant garden is home to a Robert Burns monument designed in the Neoclassical era. The monument was constructed by Thomas Hamilton of Edinburgh in 1812 after a design competition. Hamilton would later erect a monument in Burns’ honour in his hometown.

The monument’s three-sided base is surrounded by a circle of Corinthian columns that rise to a dome-shaped cupola. Each of the three sides focuses on one of the three original divisions of Ayrshire: Carrick, Cunninghame, or Kyle. The basement houses a marble bust of Burns that was sculpted by Patric Park and added in 1845.

Due to the fact that Burns and Hamilton were both Freemasons, the monument is replete with odd Masonic symbols. A short distance from the monument itself is a modest, glorified garden shed-style neo-classical building. Several models or sculptures of the main characters from Burns’ most well-known poetry can be found in this collection.

These sculptures by James Thom of Tarbolton were extremely well-known during the 19th century and went on tour throughout the UK, where throngs of people gathered to see them. One can see characters like Kirkton Jean, Tam O’ Shanter, and Souter Johnnie laughing and drinking.