Burns Cottage

Burns Cottage stands in Alloway, a suburb of Ayr in South Ayrshire. It is a four-roomed clay and thatch cottage built in 1757 by Robert Burns’s father, William Burnes. The cottage was the poet’s birthplace on 25 January 1759 and has been fully restored as part of the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum. The National Trust for Scotland now owns and protects the building. Its simple design reflects the life of a farming family in the 18th century. The cottage has served many purposes since Burns left as a child. It became a pub run by Mr Goudie, who traded on the poet’s growing fame. In 1818 the English poet John Keats visited, expecting pleasure but meeting a drunken keeper. Suffragettes once tried to set the cottage alight to draw attention to their cause. By the 19th century it had been a rented home and an alehouse before being returned to its original appearance in 1881. Inside, the cottage has two rooms for people and two for farm animals. A small kitchen and parlour link through a byre and barn area. The kitchen contains an alcove with the bed box where Burns was born. The walls and thatch have been carefully preserved to show how the family lived. Outside, the cottage fronts the main street of Alloway, keeping its long, low shape from Burns’s time.