Trip to Scotland and England 2010

Oct 17, Sunday

Today was a relatively quiet day. We spent the previous night and will spend this night at West Winds B&B in Troon. During this Sunday we drove to Ayr to see the Burns memorial and the Brig O' Doon. Then we drove to Maidens where I first lived and wandered around the pier. Finally we went to the graveyard at the Auld Kirk in Kirkoswald.

Scenes in Ayr at the Burns Memorial and Brig O' Doon


Seafield Hospital whee I was born in Ayr; it was destroyed in a fire a few years ago	I was born on the second floor of the wing behind the chimney almost 68 years ago

The Alloway Auld Kirk featured in Burns' "Tam O'Shanter"	The grave of Burns' father William

The back of the headstone for William Burns wi' an epitet writ by Rab	View from the Burns memorial


Panels from the Burns Memorial

The Brig O'Doon


Panel at the Brig O'doon	Standing at the key-stane where Meg lost her tail

View north from the bridge	view south from the bridge

The Statues of the Tam O'Shanter tale


Descriptions of the famous statues from the poem	The statues on tour -- even to the US

A Trip to Maidens

We left Alloway and drove down the coast road to Maidens


The plinth at the Electric Brae	Looking across at Culzean Castle; the road is sloping uphill here

Maidens Harbour, where Dad made a boat slip	another view -- Culzean at the right

Kirkoswald

Next we drove over to Kirkoswald where I lived for a few months in the summer of 1944


Kirkoswald where Burns wrote his first poems	The Souter Johnny Inn -- Burns was a student in this building

Souter Johnny's house is down the street from the inn	The house of Burns -- at the far left is Souter Johnny's house which is now a museum. it seems always to be closed when I visit. It currently houses a copy of the statue shown above.

In Kirkoswald we attempted to find the graves of three Canadian soldiers from the First World War who had come from the parish

We returned to Troon where we again stayed at the West Winds House B&B.