Robert Burns - Early Life

You can enter the barn at Burns Cottage from the yard or from the cottage through the byre. The flagstone floor is not original, but was added probably sometime in the 19th century when the cottage housed a tavern.

When the Burns family lived here, the barn was a storage place for hay, straw, grains and tools, some of which you can see above in the rafters. 
 

The flail was used for threshing (‘thrashing’ in Scots). Harvested grains were laid on the floor and beaten with a flail to separate the kernels of grain from the stalks and loosen the chaff—the outer husk—from the kernels.

The larger tool here is a scythe, and the smaller one is a sickle. Both were used for reaping crops. In Burns’s day, Scots used the word ‘shearing’ for cutting down crops—harvest time was referred to as ‘the shearing’. 

The byre, or cowshed, is located between the barn and the cottage’s domestic rooms. A stable for farm animals, the byre has one large stall and a row of smaller ones. 

Inscriptions on the walls indicate some of the activities that very likely took place in this room as well as the Scots words the young Robert Burns used for cows, horses, and chickens. The byre also contains tools used in the activities that took place there.

The cottage’s modern-day curators believe that the cobbled floor in the byre was laid down by William Burnes, which would make it the only original floor in the cottage. It’s very likely that the stones were collected from the nearby River Doon.

The large chest next to the smaller stalls is a ‘girnal’, or grain store. It was used to store whole and ground grains and other slow-perishing foodstuffs. In fact, William Burnes probably kept his girnal in the barn.

The barrel-like objects with long handles are plunge churns, or ‘plout kirns’ in Scots. They were used for churning butter. When cream from cow’s milk is agitated in the churn by plunging the handle up and down, it splits into thin buttermilk and lumpy butter.

This room, the spence, is one of the cottage’s original two rooms. It was once the byre. A two-roomed cottage of this type was typical of the dwellings of tenant farmers in lowland Scotland in Burns’s day and was familiarly known as a ‘but and ben’. 

It served a variety of purposes: sitting room, dining room, schoolroom, workroom, and storeroom. 

and then by their tutor, John Murdoch. Murdoch, who was only 18 when he was hired on, taught the boys Latin, French, and some mathematics.  

You might have noticed that the doors in the spence are covered with writing. It dates from a period in the 19th century when the house was used as a pub. Most is carved, and some is ornate and finely done.

To make this rug, strips of rag were ‘hooked’ through a hessian backing to form a soft, thick mat.  To clean it, it was placed over a wall outside and beaten—look for the carpet beater in the kitchen.

The kitchen in the Burns’s cottage was undoubtedly a crowded and busy place—mother Agnes gave birth to 4 children between 1759 and 1764. The family was poor, and most of what Agnes prepared for them to eat they must have produced themselves.

Likely staples include oats and barley; potatoes, swedes, and greens; eggs, milk, and cheese; chicken and mutton. We can imagine that the children also grew up on traditional folk songs and readings from the big family Bible.

The nightshirts hanging above the box-bed represent the 4 Burns children who were born in it: Robert (1759), Gilbert (1760), Agnes (1762), and Annabella (1764).  Notice how short the bed is: in the 18th century, people tended to sleep in a more upright position.

The larger chair was Robert’s father’s and the shorter one was his mother’s. (The real chairs of which these are replicas are displayed in the main museum building.) They are inscribed with verses from Burns’s poem ‘The Cotter’s Saturday Night’.

The dresser was an important piece of furniture in a kitchen without built-in cupboards. This dresser holds plates and platters, horn mugs and cups, a tea set, butter pats for forming butter into blocks, and a carpet beater.

The cauldrons were used for cooking porridge and soups, and the flat circular griddle, or ‘girdle’, was used for baking bannocks (oatcakes) and scones. Cooking vessels were raised and lowered over the fire on the built-in jack.

In 1780, the upper storey of the 17th century house on Sandgate Street in Tarbolton was the largest room in the village and was used for functions of various sorts.

In that year, Robert Burns founded a debating club here dubbed the Bachelors’ Club—by rule, all members were unmarried men. It was also in this room that Burns was initiated into Freemasonry. Today, the house is operated as a museum by the National Trust of Scotland.

Burns learned to dance—to tunes played on the fiddle—in this room. We know that Burns was a fairly good musician; in one of his letters he describes himself as a ‘fiddler and a poet’. 

This impressive volume, with its brass clasps, is a bible. In 18th century Scotland, religion was part of everyday life, and the protestant Church of Scotland—the Kirk—influenced every aspect of life.