Burns House Museum Location: Castle St, Mauchline KA5 5BZ
Opening times: Tuesday and Wednesday, 10.30am – 6.00pm; Thursday, 1.30pm – 8.00pm; Friday and Saturday, 10.30am – 4.00pm; Sunday to Monday, CLOSED.
Entry: No charge.
Access: Car park nearby, no charge.
I’m still Mauchline, still in Burns Country, and I can’t believe I had never heard of Mauchline until last week, as it is clearly as much Burns Country as the more celebrated Alloway. Burns may have been born and spent the first seven years of his life there, but his life here – no more than four years, from 1784 to 1788 – was more full of landmarks and incident. And while it is true the National Burns Memorialon the outskirts is little more an empty husk now, the centre of town is full of reminders of Burns’ life in Mauchline.
Yet the town is empty in a way I imagine Alloway is not. If the poet’s birthplace is the centre of the Burns Universe, then Mauchline feels very much like Burns Off the Beaten Track. The temperature is hitting 33°C / 91.4°F, the blue above is cloudless, the air is still, and I am alone in following in the bard’s footsteps. Anyway, let’s go to my first stop.
This statue of Jean Armour as a young, single woman stands on the corner of Kilmarnock Road and High Street, and was sculpted by Ruaraig MacIver and unveiled in November 2002. Born in 25 February 1765, Jean was one of six women Burns dubbed the Belles of Mauchline, and in his short poem of that name he briefly describes then before concluding “But Armour’s the jewel for me o’ them a’”. They were married in the town in 1788 and had nine children together. When she died in 1834 she was buried alongside her husband in the mausoleum in St. Michael’s Kirkyard, Dumfries.This is the Burns House Museum (left), which is maintained by East Ayrshire Council. A single first floor room provided Burns and Jean Armour with their first home, from March 1788. From June onwards Burns was often away preparing their new home at Ellisland, near Dumfries, which they moved to in December. The building on the right was the house and surgery of Dr. John Mackenzie, who encouraged Burns’ verse and later secured the poet some influential connections. Mackenzie was married to Helen Miller, another of the Mauchline belles.This single room is what Burns and Armour first called home. Jean gave birth to twins here, two girls who died within days.The furnishings and layout are not original but are authentic to the period. Although tiny compared to the Burns Birthplace Museum in Alloway or Robert Burns House in Dumfries, the Burns House Museum nonetheless has an interesting array of Burns-related artefacts ands paraphernalia such as these original pages from the manuscript of ‘Holy Willie’s Prayer’. Just along from the Burns House Museum are these blue plaques, just two of many to be found scattered around the centre of town. The one on the left marks the site of Ronald’s Ballroom where Burns and Armour first met, if one discounts the story of his dog running over her laundry (see previous entry). The plaque on the right denotes the site of Gavin Hamilton’s home. A lawyer by trade, Hamilton was one of Burns’ great friends. It was he who sub-let Mossgiel Farm to the Burns family, having taken on the lease of the property from the Earl of Loudoun, and the dog / laundry incident occurred while Burns was on his way to visit Hamilton. It was in Hamilton’s home that Burns and Jean Armour were legally married on 2 May 1788. He also supported Burns’ poetry, subscribing to no less than forty copies of what became known as the Kilmarnock Edition of Poems Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, and it is to Hamilton that Burns dedicated the book.
The greatest number of blue plaques are to found in the Mauchline kirkyard, marking the graves of a ‘Who’s Who’ of Burns’ friends and acquaintances, many of whom appeared in his poems. Gavin Hamilton lies not far from his old adversary Willie Fisher, an elder of the kirk. One of Hamilton’s roles was collecting poor relief tithes for the church, and Fisher accused him of financial impropriety when the books didn’t tally. Hamilton’s defence was that the missing money was down to some of the parishioners being unable to afford their tithes. Fisher also accused Hamilton of planting vegetables and travelling on a Sunday, and not reading his Bible on the Sabbath. Fisher’s complaint against Hamilton was heard by the Presbytery of Ayr, and the latter won the day. Burns immortalised Fisher in ‘Holy Willie’s Prayer’, a scathing attack on religious hypocrisy. Fisher died in 1809, apparently found dead in a ditch clutching a bottle of whisky.
This is the grave of four infant children of Burns and Armour. These are the two unnamed girls mentioned above, who died within days of their births, plus two other daughters, Jean, who died aged 14 months, and Elizabeth, who dies just before her third birthday. Burns’ youngest brother John is also buried in this cemetery; he died at Mossgiel Farm of unknown causes.
Highland Mary Monument Location: B743, Failford, Ayrshire, Scotland, KA5 5TF
Opening times: 24 hours.
Entry: No charge.
Access: Street parking, no charge.
For my final stop of this Burns Country excursion I head west along the Ayr Road (B743) for 2½ miles until I come to the hamlet of Failford and the brown sign for the monument to Highland Mary. The monument can’t be seen from the road but I park close to the sign and follow the path indicated to soon come upon it.
‘Highland Mary’ was Mary Campbell (1763 – 1786), originally of Dunoon, whom Burns probably first met at Gavin Hamilton’s house, where she was employed as a nursery maid 1785 – 1786. They had a very brief affair beginning April 1786 and ending the following month. At the time Burns’ future wife Jean Armour was pregnant, but her father disapproved of her relationship with Burns, who was a failed farmer rather than the superstar wordsmith we know today. In a bid to avoid scandal Jean’s father sent her to stay with relatives in Paisley. As far as Burns was concerned Jean had deserted him, which justified – if justification were e’er required – his ‘having it off’ with Mary Campbell.
Highland Mary’s Monument stands next to the Water of Fail just before it meets the River Ayr, the reputed spot of her final meeting with Burns. The relationship between Robert and Mary has been romanticised and speculated about for over two centuries. They may have planned emigrating to Jamaica together. They may have exchanged Bibles. They may have made matrimonial pledges to each other. She may have fallen pregnant by him. The only thing we know for sure is that they parted in May 1786, and that Mary died aged 23 around 20 October that year from typhus, having contracted the disease while nursing her brother. Note that access to the monument involves climbing a short but steep flight of stairs.The writing towards the top of the monument reads, “Near this spot Robert Burns and Highland Mary took their last farewell, 14th May 1786”. The monument was erected by the Burns Federation in 1921 and paid for Harland and Wolff shipbuilders, who had previously relocated Greenock’s Old West Kirk and cemetery, including Mary’s remains, to expand their yard.The above lines come from the poem ‘To Mary In Heaven’, written in September 1789. The poem was first published in James Johnson’s Scots Musical Museum (1790), and set to an existing tune, The Death ofCaptain Cook, at Burns’ request. Burns also wrote ‘The Highland Lassie O’, ‘Highland Mary’, and ‘Will Ye Go to the Indies, my Mary, and Leave Auld Scotia’s Shore?’ about Campbell.
Destination or Diversion?
Each of the places visited in this and the previous entry are by themselves no more than diversions, but combining them makes for both a destination and a nice tour around various Burns-related sites. This could be further extended by adding a trip to Alloway and its attractions, but that would be risking a serious case of Burns out.
