Living OUR AREA Mauchline

Mauchline lies in the centre of East Ayrshire about nine miles south of Kilmarnock and has a population of 4176. Its name is believed to be of Celtic in origin - Magh (a field or meadow) and Linn/Linne (a pool or lake) giving us "plain with a pool". This may have been how the land was but due a variety of agricultural improvements there is little trace of this now.

Dating back to the Twelfth Century, Mauchline was first populated by a colony of Melrose Monks who established a church in 1165. The order continued until the 16th Century by which time a community had grown up around it.

Mauchline has many connections with Robert Burns writing many of his poems while living at Mossgiel, and then with Jean Armour in the village itself. Within sight of Mossgiel stands the sixty-foot National Burns' Memorial and Cottage Homes. The Tower is in the old Scottish Baronial style of architecture and consists of three floors. It was a museum and contained many valuable manuscripts and relics of the poet, however it now lies empty. The Memorial Homes are occupied by older folk - rent-free. Here older couples enjoy ‘their ain fireside'.

The Burns House Museum, a red sandstone building standing on what was once called ‘Backcauseway', now Castle Street, is the house in which Burns and Jean Armour set up their home in 1788. Burns had pledged his troth with Jean Armour, against her father's wishes, and it was only in 1788 after she had borne him two sets of twins, that he was allowed to acknowledge her as his wife. They occupied a room on the upper floor and here Jean remained until the farmhouse at Ellisland was ready. The house, over 200 years old, is next door to one occupied by Dr. John Mackenzie, Burns' friend, and almost opposite that of Nanse Tinnock, owner of the ‘Sma' Inn. Built in 1712, the ‘Sma Inn' as it was known, gave access from its upper floor to the Kirkyard.

A bronze statue of Jean Armour, the first in the world, was unveiled at Mauchline Cross on Saturday, 30 November 2002, just yards from the house where she and Robert Burns lived after they were married. Lady Hagart-Alexander of Ballochmyle carried out the unveiling of the statue, and guest speakers included Provost James Boyd and Ian Lyell, Hon President of Mauchline Burns Club, who gave a memorable talk on the life of Jean Armour in Mauchline. The statue was designed by sculptor Ruaraig MacIver and was cast in bronze at Beltane Studios in Peebles. Uniquely, it is of a young Jean Armour, aged 23. The bronze is slightly above life-size and sits on a stone plinth at the main entrance to Mauchline Library, facing down Castle Street towards the Burns House Museum (which is furnished in much the same way as it was in Burn's day) Mauchline Library and local office was built in 1996 and replaced an 18 th century building known as “ The Place.”