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| Robert
Burns in Irvine 1781-82 |
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We have a separate page for the Irvine statue of Robert Burns.
After joining the main road from the statue towards Irvine Cross, you reach "Wellwood", 28 Eglinton Street (at the Provost's lamps), the home of Irvine Burns Club, founded in 1826 by two personal friends of the poet, and their friends. The Club possesses original manuscripts, a Burns Room with unique murals, a library, and a Concert Room upstairs.
The history of the building is as follows. Alexander Paterson had been a partner in Hunter’s Bank; after its incorporation into the Union Bank, he and his son John continued as agents with them. Both served on the council, John from 1854, serving as Provost in 1873-78; there is a fine painting of him on the staircase. John bought the previous house on this site in 1869. In 1898, the house passed to his widow, Mrs Catherine Gillies Paterson, who, in 1904, acquired the adjoining property and built the present house.
On her death, “Wellwood” passed to her daughter Annie, and, in 1934, to Annie’s two surviving brothers, J Graham and Robert, who bequeathed it to Irvine Burns Club in 1955, subject to a life rent in favour of their housekeeper Miss McLean. Irvine Burns Club used the ground floor from 1963, and became the sole occupant in 1976. The building now houses our Museum, with regular opening hours and free admission.
At the Cross, set in the pavement outside the Eglinton Arms Hotel, is a roundel showing the plants used by Surgeon Fleming to treat Burns in November 1781, when "luckless fortune's northern storms laid a' my blossoms low!" The roundel was commissioned by Eglinton Burns Club from artist Ian Cooper in 1996.
Beyond, at Glasgow Vennel, is the Heckling Shed, where Burns worked in 1781 - restored in 1982 by local authorities, the Tourist Board and the Clement Wilson Foundation, with the assistance of the Irvine Burns Club. Nearby, at no. 4, are the lodgings where he stayed.
At the Parish Church are the graves of David Sillar ("Dainty Davie") and Mauchline Belle Helen Miller, wife of Dr John Mackenzie; inside is the Robert Burns stained glass window by artist Susan Bradbury - presented by Irvine Burns Club as a Bicentenary Year tribute in 1996.
Off
Bank Street, at Mackinnon Terrace, a cairn
records the Drukken Steps in the Eglinton woods - a favourite
walk of Burns and Richard Brown. The bypass referred to in the later inscription
is visible behind the monument. (Click it to enlarge.)
The
lower inscription (1927) says:
Eglinton Woods, Drukken Steps (St Bryde's Well), Favourite Walk (1781-82)
of Robert Burns and his sailor friend Richard Brown. "Do you recollect
a Sunday we spent together in Eglinton Woods? R.B." 30th Dec., 1787.
Irvine Burns Club, 25th January 1927.
The
upper inscription (1976) reads:
This cairn was erected for Irvine Burns Club to mark their 150th anniversary
and to re-locate the plaque originally placed at the Drukken Steps 700
yards north west of this spot by W & C French (Construction) Ltd,
builders of Irvine by-pass, January 1976.
The gardens of Eglinton Country Park, established by the Clement Wilson Foundation, are graced by a fine Belgian statue of Burns, presented by Mr R Clement Wilson.
