Walk in the
Footsteps of Burns!
We drove down to Alloway in the rain and walked in Burns footsteps.
The skies cleared as we neared the small town he lived in until he was seven.
The Allloway cottage has three rooms, with a Byrne and house in one building. William built the house with mud and straw and painted it with a limewash. It had two doors at each end – one to where our animals lived, the other door to our living room and kitchen.
In 2016 for my first journey to visit Burns country of Ayrshire I travelled to Alloway of course where there is the cottage he lived his first formative years, the Brig o Doon and the large Burns museum, which is packed with Burns memorabilia. At Alloway Robert’s father had owned the land. After the Burnes family left Alloway they moved a few miles south west up the hills to Mount Oliphant to rent a farm there. He wanted his keep this growing family together and to educate his sons – rather than for them to become farm workers elsewhere. Robert lived there, the oldest of seven children and slept with his brother Gilbert in the roof space from age 7 – 18 years
We walked over the Brig O Doon, past the Aulk Kirk, the cottage William Burnes built, the road from Ayr to Maypole and the flat beaches looking west.
An
impressive and picturesque part of Scotland's west coast. There is a Burns
museum where you can see some of his letters, books and writing quills. It is well worth a
visit.
