Qualla: Ellisland Farm

Ellisland Farm: Introduction

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. An oat-cake broke over Jean Armour's head as she crossed the threshold in June 1789, a servant-maid named Elizabeth Smith leading the procession with a bowl of salt resting on the family bible. Friends and neighbours had gathered for the house warming. There would be dancing, drinking, and toasts to the success of the new home. Robert Burns had finally moved his family into the farmhouse he had built with his own arrangements on the gravelly bank above the River Nith. Within thirty months he would abandon it as a failure. Within those same thirty months he would write some of the greatest songs in the English-speaking tradition.

Read more: Ellisland Farm on Qualla

Image: Public domain

Ellisland Farm: A Lease of Hope and Stones

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rosser1954 Roger Griffith, Public domain. Burns visited Ellisland on 27 February 1788 with James Tennant of Glenconner, a friend of his late father. Patrick Miller of Dalswinton, who owned the land, offered Burns a seventy-six-year lease divided into four nineteen-year periods. The rent began at £50 a year for the first ...

Read more: Ellisland Farm on Qualla

Image: Rosser1954 Roger Griffith | Public domain

Ellisland Farm: The House on the Gravelly Bank

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jim Barton, CC BY-SA 2.0. Alexander Crombie laid the stone; Thomas Boyd designed the plans. The house had one storey with garrets for the servants, a 'company' room at the west end, a sitting-room at the east with a gable window over the surroundings, and a kitchen and bedroom between. The work dragged so...

Read more: Ellisland Farm on Qualla

Image: Jim Barton | CC BY-SA 2.0

Ellisland Farm: Tam o' Shanter on the Nith

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rosser1954 Roger Griffith, Public domain. Captain Francis Grose came visiting at neighbouring Friars' Carse, an antiquary collecting material for his Scottish Antiquities. Burns offered a trade: include Kirk Alloway, where Burns's father was buried, and Burns would write a poem to match. The poem was Tam o' Shanter, whic...

Read more: Ellisland Farm on Qualla

Image: Rosser1954 Roger Griffith | Public domain

Ellisland Farm: The Hermitage and the Whistle

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rosser1954 Roger Griffith, Public domain. Captain Robert Riddell of Glenriddell, Burns's neighbour to the north, had built a small summer house called the Hermitage in a secluded corner of his Friars' Carse estate. He gave Burns the key. The poet often wrote there, and the two friends shared a great many drinking session...

Read more: Ellisland Farm on Qualla

Image: Rosser1954 Roger Griffith | Public domain

Ellisland Farm: The Excise Wins

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rosser1954 Roger Griffith, Public domain. Burns had taken his Excise commission on 14 July 1788, just weeks into the lease. For two years he worked both jobs, riding the Nithsdale roads checking taxes by day and farming by light of his own conscience. Eventually the Excise career looked more profitable than the stony fie...

Read more: Ellisland Farm on Qualla

Image: Rosser1954 Roger Griffith | Public domain