Our easy-to-use website contains details and locations of places to visit around this area. Please select from:

	Places to Stay: Bed and Breakfast Hotels and Guest Houses Pubs with Accommodation Self Catering
	Places to Eat and Drink: Cafes, Coffee & Tea Shops Pubs serving Food Restaurants and Bistros
	Places of Interest: Places to Visit
	Gardens Centres: Garden Centres/Nurseries
	Specialist Shops: Antiques & Restoration Arts and Crafts Fashions Gifts Home and Garden Jewellery Food and Drink Shops

Ellisland

Robert Burns brought his family south from Mauchline to Ellisland in June 1788. However, there was no farmhouse at the time, and he had to have one built, meaning that he couldn‘t move in properly until the following year. He leased the 170-acre Ellisland Farm from Patrick Millar of Dalswinton, but found the soil to be infertile and stony. So much so that by 1791 he gave up the unequal struggle to make a living from it and moved with his family to Dumfries.

The farm sits in a beautiful spot beside the Nith, and it was this romantic location which had made Burns choose it in the first place. Here he wrote some of his best poetry, including Auld Lang Syne and his masterpiece of the comic/macabre, Tam o’ Shanter. Burns used to recount that Tam o’ Shanter was conceived while walking the banks of the Nith, and he laughed out loud as he thought up his hero’s adventures with the witches. Now the farmhouse houses a lively museum dedicated to his memory. To the north is Hermitage Cottage, which Burns used as a place to muse and write poetry.