Robert Burns Birthplace Museum
Robert Burns
Birthplace Museum
Robert Burns Birthplace Museum offers a truly unique encounter with Scotland’s favourite son. Set among 10 acres of the poet’s cherished Alloway countryside, the museum comprises the famous Burns Cottage where the poet was born, the historic landmarks where he set his greatest work, the elegant monument and gardens created in his honour and a modern museum housing the world’s most important collection of his life and works.
| The Real Burns |
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"Mair nonsense has been uttered in his name - Than in ony's barrin liberty and Christ." Hugh Macdiarmid The Ayrshire ploughman, who rose from humble beginnings to become one of the world’s best known poets, Robert Burns has become an international icon. His national pride, fierce egalitarianism, and quick wit have become synonymous with the Scottish character itself. Yet who was the real Robert Burns? By tracing his footsteps from birth to international superstardom, the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum, from the Burns museum itself to Burns Cottage to Brig o’ Doon to Burns Monument, offers you the best opportunity to discover the complex and passionate man behind the icon.
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Illustrated map
Click here for an illustrated map of the entire Robert Burns Birthplace Museum site, including not just the Burns museum, but the Burns Monument, Brig o Doon, Burns Cottage, Alloway Auld Kirk and the Poet’s Path.
Destination guides
Click on these links to download guides for destinations within the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum site.
Poems
Robert Burns poetry is at the core of his lasting fame and some samples of his earliest, finest and best-known poems can be found here.
Robert Burns timeline
Burns was born in 1759 and was dead by 1796. This Robert Burns timeline fills in some of the important dates in those 37 years.
Robert Burns’s writing set, late 18th-century
Containing goose-quill nibs, a sharpening knife and a tiny inkwell, Robert carried this writing set with him as he travelled through the countryside. The poet was fond of quoting another writer, Thomas Gray, in thinking ‘a word fix’d on the spot is worth a cart-load of recollection’ and these tools of his trade would have helped him do this on country walks, or while working in the open air.
Copyright 2013 Robert Burns Birthplace Museum/National Trust for Scotland