Ellisland Farm, a home of Robert Burns

We spent much of last week in Dumfries and Galloway in the south-west of Scotland. We've visited this area many times, but there are still new places to explore. I'm not sure why it took us so long to get round to visiting Ellisland Farm, as it is very close to the hotel where we always stag, and I've already visited the other Burns museums in Dumfries. This farm was the home for Robert Burns for just a few years from 1788, but was the place where he wrote many of his most famous pieces including Tam O'Shanter. It's a very impressive museum, with plans to extend and develop it to preserve the built heritage and to further celebrate the legacy of Robert Burns. 

Entry to the museum is £6.00 (members get in for free) which includes an introductory talk and video in the lovely granary building

After that you're left to your own devices to explore the buildings and the outdoor spaces. We didn't give ourselves enough time to explore the riverside walks, as we were returning to Edinburgh that day. So we'll need to go back next time for those walks. We did spend some time in the orchard

where we noticed several Red Admiral butterflies feasting on the windfalls

 

and these impressive galls on the leaves of an Oak tree, the ones that look like miniature doughnuts are Silky Button Galls, the other ones are Spangle Galls

We were both interested to see that on the desk where Burns used to write, there are some Oak Apple galls, which, in his day, would have been used to make ink

You can see a couple more photos from Ellisland (including the desk where Burns wrote) on my Shapeshifting Green Blog.  

I'll be posting more photos from our holiday over the next few days!