History

Robert Burns spent his later years in Dumfries until his death in 1796.

Burns leased Ellisland Farm near Dumfries and later gave this up to take up the position of exciseman in Dumfries, collecting taxes in the Dumfries and Nithsdale area.

Burns statue, Dumfries

Burns continued to write and some of his most memorable works were created in his Dumfries years such as 'Ae Fond Kiss' and 'Auld Lang Syne'. It is also thought that he wrote 'Tam O' Shanter' while on a walk along the banks of the River Nith near Ellisland Farm.

He also wrote some of his most politically scathing work in and around Dumfries, frustrated in his work as an exciseman and critical of the Establishment.

Burns is now regarded as adopted son of Dumfries with a statue of him in the centre of the town.

Places

Ellisland Farm is now a museum containing many of Burns' possessions and manuscripts. A walk away is Friar's Carse Country Estate, now a hotel but once home to a friend and neighbour of Burns, Robert Riddell. Burns wrote here and also scratched lines onto the window of the summerhouse.

St Michael's Church, Dumfries

Robert Burns spent many of his Dumfries drinking hours at The Globe Inn, 'these many years has been my Howff', as well as conducting an affair with the niece of the landlord and writing 'The Gowden Locks of Anna' in tribute to her. The Inn instituted the first Burns Supper with the Dumfries Burns club in 1820.

Burns home in Mill Street in Dumfries, where he lived with wife Jean Armour, is now the Burns House Museum and the street renamed as Burns Street. The museum contains both the Kilmarnock and Edinburgh editions of his works as well as original manuscripts. Burns scratched his name onto a window pane in the house and this can be seen today.

In the grounds of St Michael's churchyard is the sombre looking Burns Mausoleum, last resting place of Robert Burns who died at the young age of 37. Jean Armour and six of Burns and Armour's children are also buried here.