Burns Cottage

Now, it’s the turn to talk about Burns Cottage. Before talking about Burns Cottage, I must introduce a guy to you first.

Ladies and gentleman, let’s meet with Mr. Robert Burns. He is Scotland’s most remarkable and best-loved son. The Scottish say he is a humanitarian, national hero, poet and musician, lover and international son. I believe you still have no idea about him. Then, please allow me to introduce him from a foreigner’s view. He is the writer of Auld Lang Syne (友谊万岁). You should have an idea about him now, right?

Robert Burns was born on 25 January 1759 at Burns Cottage. He stayed there until he was seven years old. The cottage was built by Robert Burns’ father William Burnes two years before Robert was born. Do you notice that Robert Burns’ surname was different from his father’s? It’s not a typo! Robert Burns dropped the “e” from his surname to adopt the more common Ayshire spelling of “Burns”.

Ok, let’s go back to the Cottage. Roberts Burns and his brother, Gilbert received their early education at the cottage. Anyway, Robert Burns never went back to the cottage in his life until he died at 37 years old.

Since the Scottish are proud of Robert Burns, so everything related to him is considered important too. Therefore, we had a trip to the cottage to see its real appearance. There is a museum beside the cottage which so called the world’s most important Robert Burns collection. (Honestly, I doubt about this…) There are books and manuscripts, personal artefacts as well as art and “Burnsiana” in the museum, but not as massive as I imagined when I was reading the leaflet.

Even though I’m not very familiar with Robert Burns, but I enjoyed the trip as it’s good to see how the Scottish take good care of their heritage.