Burns Cottage

‘His wee bit ingle, blinkin bonilie,
His clean hearth-stane, his thrifty wifie’s smile
The lisping infant, prattling on his knee,
Does a’ his weary kiaugh and care beguile,’ [The Cotter’s Saturday Night, 1785]

This cosy four-room cottage is where Burns was born and lived until the age of seven. Take a look at the tiny box bed that young Robert shared with three of his siblings.

Burns and his family lived side by side with their farm animals. In the kitchen, they ate their meals together, read by the crackling fireside and received their earliest schooling. The kitchen area is brought to life with a spooky rendition of Tam o’ Shanter, re-creating the atmosphere of the house where Burns’s imagination was first fired.

Throughout, the walls of the cottage are daubed with fragments of Burns’s verse and a braw selection of Scots words, such as ‘hawkie’ and ‘crambo-jingle.’ Outside is the small cottage garden where Robert tended the crops alongside his father and brother Gilbert.

The cottage was a privately rented residence and then an alehouse for most of the 19th century, before being restored to its former glory by the Burns Monument Trust in 1881.

On Burns Night, a very special Burns Supper is held in the cottage to celebrate the Bard’s birthday. The gallery below shows some of the highlights from the 2023 Supper.