Auldgirth, Dumfries & Galloway - Ellisland Robert Burns House - postcard c.1950s

• Postcard

   

• Picture / Image:  Ellisland, Dumfriesshire [in Auldgirth] - shows Jean Armour and Robert Burns 
• Publisher: none stated
• Postally used: no
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Text from the free encyclopedia WIKIPEDIA may appear below to give a little background information (internal links may not  work) :

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Ellisland Farm lies about 6.5 mi/10.4 km northwest of Dumfries in village of Auldgirth, located in the Parish of Dunscore, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. The complex is a museum in the farm Robert Burns built, lived in and farmed from 1788 until 1791.^[1]

Patrick Miller of Dalswinton had offered Burns a choice of three farms, two on the rich holms of the River Nith's east side; and one, Ellisland, on the west bank, composed of a fertile strip along the river itself and stony fields between the river and the Dumfries road.^[5]Burns visited Ellisland on 27 February 1788 with James Tennant of Glenconner, a friend of himself and his father;^[6] taking James's advice he agreed to sign up to the seventy-six-year lease from his friend Patrick Miller of Dalswinton,^[7] taking up the lease of the farm at Whitsun (25 May) 1788. The lease was divided up into four periods of nineteen years, the rent for the first three years to be £50 per annum, and £70 thereafter.^[8]

Robert had written a letter to his friend Patrick Miller, on 20 October 1787:

I want to be a farmer in a small farm, about a plough-gang, in a pleasant country, under the auspices of a good landlord. I have no foolish notion of being a tenant on easier terms than another.

To find a farm where one can live at all is not easy – I only mean living soberly, like an old-style farmer, and joining personal industry.

The banks of the Nith are as sweet poetic ground as any I ever saw; and besides, Sir, 'tis but justice to the feelings of my own heart and the opinion of my best friends, to say that I would wish to call you landlord sooner than any landed gentleman I know…

Burns did not begin farming work until 11 June 1788. Ellisland had no farmhouse or farm buildings and Patrick Miller provided Burns with £300 to build one, construct the byre, cart shed, etc. and to stock the farm and enclose the fields.^[9]

Robert had formally married Jean Armour on 20 March,^[10] but Robert, Jean and their two-year-old son Robert would not be able to move into the farm until the following Spring; Robert at first lodged with David and Nance Cullie or Kelly,^[4] the previous tenant, in their cottage near the ruin of the Isle Tower.^[11] In December Jean came down to Nithsdale and stayed rent free with Robert at the Isle, the country house of David Newall, a Dumfries lawyer.^[12]

The whole family moved into Ellisland during June 1789, walking the short distance up from the Isle in procession, and to ensure good luck they entered in their best clothes, following a servant-maid, Elizabeth Smith, who carried the family bible on which sat a bowl of salt. As Robert and Jean entered, an oat-cake was broken over the head of the wife and everyone gathered for a drink to the success of the new home; the evening would have been taken up with a 'house warming'; dancing and drinking with friends and neighbours.^[13] Mrs Dunlop of Dunlop House had given the couple a four poster bed and they had a selection of furniture made by Ayrshire carpenters.^[14]

Jean was said to be a good and prudent housewife, kept everything in neat and tidy order, was well liked by the servants and provided plenty of wholesome food. The maid-servant, Elizabeth, previously mentioned was a cousin.^[15] Robert Ainslie was not so complimentary when he visited Ellisland in October 1790.^[16]

Burns' sons Francis Wallace and William Nicol were born at Ellisland Farm, and their half-sister Betty (daughter of Helen Anne Park of Dumfries^[17]) spent the first months of her life here too.

For a time Robert's youngest brother William lived at Ellisland until he got a job as an apprentice saddler near Carlisle.^[18]