Photo: Burns cottage. Image by luckyjimmy
Robert was born in the small cottage, built by his father William, in Alloway village a few miles south-west of Ayr. Robert called it the 'Auld Cley Biggin'. Today Burns’s birthplace is a museum open to the public.
William Burnes had leased a few acres of land at Alloway and built a cottage as a home for his wife, Agnes Broun. Robert, their first child, was born in the box bed in the cottage on 25 January 1759.
In winter the turf-roofed cottage was cold and draughty. It was lit by candles and firelight from the hearth.
As a child, Robert listened, wide-eyed, to strange stories told by Betty Davidson, his mother’s maid.
She had, I suppose, the largest collection in the county of tales and songs concerning devils, ghosts, fairies, brownies, witches, warlocks, spunkies, kelpies, elf candles, dead-lights, wraiths, apparitions, cantraips, giants, inchanted towers, dragons and other trumpery.
This cultivated the latent seeds of Poesy; but had so strong an effect on my imagination, that to this hour, in my nocturnal rambles, I sometimes keep a sharp look-out in suspicious places; and though nobody can be more sceptical in these matters than I, yet it often takes an effort of Philosophy to shake off these idle terrors.
The National Trust for Scotland is taking the lead in delivering a multi-million pound Burns project in Alloway village. The initiative includes the creation of a new world-class Robert Burns Birthplace Museum.
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