Description
Robert Burns Tour
The Robert Burns tour will start by travelling to Ellisland Farm and Museum. This was Burns’s farm when he first moved to Dumfries and Galloway from Ayrshire in 1788. We can also visit the Hermitage in the grounds of Friars Carse where Burns would sit and write in the small bothy in land adjacent to Ellisland farm. Lunch or afternoon tea can be arranged in the lovely Friars Carse Hotel. The remainder of most of the day will be spent in and around Dumfries. We will start in Dumfries at the Burns Statue on the High Street and then walk past the Hole in the Wa’ Inn- a favourite howff of Burns. We will then walk to the “Sanghoose” which was Burns’s first house in the town and where he wrote many of his famous songs including Ae Fond Kiss. Then we will cross the River Nith via the Devorgilla Bridge to the Burns Centre which tells the story of Robert Burns’ last years spent in the bustling streets and lively atmosphere of Dumfries in the late eighteenth century. The exhibition is illuminated by many original manuscripts and belongings of the poet. Lunch at The Globe Inn, which is Burns’s favourite howff in the town, is next on the itinerary. As well as lunch you can sit in Burns’s chair beside the original fireplace. In an upstairs bedroom a number of windowpanes were inscribed by Burns, two genuine ones remaining. One pane has a stanza from “Lovely Polly Stewart.” whilst the other has a variant on “Comin Thro the Rye. After a delicious lunch we will Visit Burns’s House and Museum in Burns Street. Next is a visit to St Michael’s churchyard where Burns was interred in 1796 and then moved to a specially built mausoleum in 1815. His beloved Jean Armour and five of his children were later buried there as well.
If requested we can visit the Brow Well about 15 miles from Dumfries where Burns spent some time in 1796 trying to recover from illness but unfortunately hastened his premature death. We can alter parts of this busy itinerary and would be delighted to include a visit to the new Annandale Distillery to taste a new whisky named after the bard.
