Robert Burns and smugglers at an ancient standing stone: an all-in-one image for the themes of this year’s South Ayrshire History Fair talks

This image encapsulates the themes of all of the talks at the 2016 South Ayrshire History & Family History Fair at the Walker Halls, Troon on Saturday 4th June. In one of his illustrations for the 1840 publication ‘The Land of Burns’, the artist and pioneer photographer David Octavius Hill imagined the farmer and smuggler […]

An ‘Antique Smith’ Burns forgery in Ayr Carnegie Library

On 2 September 1892 the Provost of Ayr, Robert Shankland, chaired a meeting of the town’s Carnegie Public Library committee. Construction of the library building funded by a £10,000 gift from Andrew Carnegie was well under way, and Carnegie himself was due to visit the town on 5 October. He was to be given the […]

The bust of Robert Burns in Ayr Carnegie Library

The 25th of January will see world-wide festivities commemorating the birthday of South Ayrshire’s most celebrated local hero, Robert Burns (1759-1796). A marble bust of Scotland’s national bard is on display in the local history area of Carnegie Library, Ayr. It was sculpted by Amelia R. Hill (1820-1904), who was born Amelia Robertson Paton in Dunfermline, […]